In Zhuangshang, for example, the residents benefit in two ways. Some use the power from their rooftop solar panels themselves. The majority, though, take the rent and let a company install its own panels and take any profit on the power sales.
Alongside the financial benefits, we found other more unexpected bonuses for the villagers. The first is better infrastructure. “The environment’s better,” said Ye Yanqin of Dong village, also in Shanxi. “Look, the road’s wider, and cleaner. You feel happier going out now.”
That’s not directly due to the solar panels. Rather, the companies installing them often improve local roads so they can get their vehicles in and out more easily. Those wider asphalt roads bring economic co-benefits. Local crops can get to market more easily and it’s easier to do business outside of the village.
Distributed solar also brings job opportunities. “When they were doing the installations, some of us did odd jobs for them, shifting materials, helping them clear up sites, security, cleaning and so on,” Ye said. “They paid 100 to 120 yuan a day. Once the panels are installed, they need maintenance now and then. But none of that is steady work.”
There have also been courtship-related benefits, or so one villager told us: “Now the village is famous, and our young folk find it easier to get a wife or husband!”
Challenges for solar villages
But solar villages aren’t all sunshine.
As distributed solar installations have spread, connections to the grid have become an issue. More places are setting limits. Once grid capacity is reached, new connections are restricted or simply not permitted. During our visits to the villages, we often heard how getting hooked up to the grid is harder than it used to be, with new installations obliged to wait for extra grid capacity to come online.
In Heshangju, latecomers are struggling to get their solar panels hooked up.
The generous subsidies and guaranteed tariffs are gone, and now the power has to be sold on the open market. The benefits are greatly reduced and the enthusiasm of villagers and operators alike has taken a knock.
The villages, though, are working to respond. Zhuangshang is using energy storage to make use of solar power it can’t immediately use. That is costly, however, and large-scale roll-out would be challenging. A single kilowatt-hour of energy storage requires spending hundreds of yuan on lithium batteries.
Talking to villagers, we found that alongside doubts about the profits to be made, there are other concerns and misconceptions – for example, that the panels emit radiation or will damage roofs.
In fact, there are rules in place to keep roofs safe. The roof must be made of appropriate materials able to take the weight of the panels. Space, shading, safety, neighbours, regulatory compliance – all these have to be considered. In many villages, the roofs on older homes aren’t strong enough for panels to be installed.
Another issue we found in our discussions with rural residents is that they can sometimes be slow to take new ideas on board. More time and communication is needed, hampering the roll-out of distributed solar.
Teach a man to fish
With grid technology improving, there’s potential for distributed solar to bring benefits beyond profits and a better environment. Hao Jiangbei, a renewable-energy expert, is trying to make one of those possibilities real in the Beijing village of Shiwanzi and its surroundings.
He thinks a route out of the grid bottleneck is for villagers to install their own solar panels and use the power themselves. Villagers with the necessary cash can choose and install the panels, making their money back in three to five years. If they’re generating enough power, they can even launch a suitable business – something cheap to set up but power-hungry, such as grain processing. The panels also allow for low-carbon heating during winter.
However, villagers need to work out the finances and be confident in knowing which small energy-storage system and inverter to buy – all of which requires study and training.
As the technology is not too hard to understand, those who can’t afford to do this themselves can still learn the skills and make money installing or maintaining equipment for others. Yet a lack of the required knowledge and other factors mean this is not a common choice. To improve the situation, Hao Jiangbei started running solar-installation workshops last year, showing people the potential of the technology and teaching them the electrical skills needed.
The decade of solar village development, along with the current situation and the possibilities for the future, remind us that the energy transition isn’t just about energy. As Huang Yating, a volunteer from Shanxi Normal University, wrote in her notes:
“For an ordinary villager like Ye Yanqin, the wind turbines up the hill weren’t a sudden life-changing miracle. But they did, through better roads, occasional work and benefits to the village as a whole, create a social safety net able to reduce risks.
“The energy transition is not an abstract macro-level policy. It is a smoother road, a period of temporary work, or the chance of a local job.”
Project volunteers contributing to the article include: Huang Yating, Zhang Li, Wang Xinyue, Lan Qingyu, Sun Jie, Li Xinyi, Wu Jinchang, Zheng Yangfan and Chuai Zhuoyang. Zhao Liang, founder of the NGO Airman, also contributed.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
