China has the world's largest photovoltaic (PV) market, and its cumulative PV installation capacity reached more than 200 GW in 2019. However, a large gap remains to achieve the ambitious target of 1200 GW of wind and solar power installation capacity by 2030. Are there sufficient solar resources, and where should the PV modules be installed? There are no clear answers to these questions. This paper aims to identify the availability and feasibility of. China has the world's largest photovoltaic (PV) market, and its cumulative PV installation capacity reached more than 200 GW in 2019. However, a large gap remains to achieve the ambitious target of 1200 GW of wind and solar power installation capacity by 2030. Are there sufficient solar resources, and where should the PV modules be installed? There are no clear answers to these questions. This paper aims to identify the availability and feasibility of developing distributed solar PV (DSPV) systems in China's cities. The results show that China has many DSPV resources, but they are unevenly distributed. The potential for DSPV systems is greatest in eastern and southern China, areas of relatively low solar radiation. Furthermore, the difference in the potential of DSPV development among cities requires targeted policies for different geographical areas. Similarly, the difference in DSPV generation to satisfy the electricity demand in various sectors requires political and industrial efforts to address the mismatch between solar PV power generation capacity, electricity demand, and solar radiation in different regions.••••The first study to calculate distributed solar PV (DSPV) potential at city level in China.••China has many DSPV resources, but they are unevenly distributed.••The DSPV resources such as industrial parks, public facilities and rooftops of buildings have been neglected.••Contribute to the decision-making process of the DSPV development by providing a quantitative, city-specific analysis of DSPV power generation.Solar photovoltaicDistributed power stationRoadmapChinaSolar photovoltaic (PV) plays an increasingly important role in many counties to replace fossil fuel energy with renewable energy (RE). By the end of 2019, the world's cumulative PV installation capacity reached 627 GW, accounting for 2.8% of the global gross electricity generation. China, as the world's largest PV market, installed PV systems with a capacity of 30.1 GW during 2019, bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 204.3 GW, which was almost twice the national solar PV target (105 GW by 2020) established in 2016. The power generation capacity was 224 GWh, accounting for 3.1% of the total power generation in China in 2019. In recent years, the advantages of distributed solar PV (DSPV) systems over large-scale PV plants (LSPV) has attracted attention, including the unconstrained location and potential for nearby power utilization, which lower transmission cost and power losses. The proportion of DSPV systems of the total cumulative capacity increased from 13% in 2016 to 31% in 2019 (Fig. 1).On 22nd September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China aims to reach the CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, resulting in a total installed capacity of wind and solar power of over 1200 GW by 2030. To achieve this ambitious target, the Chinese energy mix will change substantially by 2060. The solar power cumul. Numerous studies have been conducted on DSPV systems due to the rapid development of this field. Some studies reviewed the challenges and policy options of DSPV implementation from the perspectives of the financing risks and the incentive policies. Indicators, such as the learning curve, levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and discounted payback period (DPBP) have been used to evaluate the economic performance of DSPV systems under various scenarios [13,14]. Researchers proposed the most profitable portfolio of electricity for self-consumption and feedback to the grid and combined the DSPV with energy storage systems. Related policies such as the feed-in tariff, the China-wide carbon market, green tradable certification, and net-metering policy were also discussed to enhance the economic efficiency of DSPV systems. The results have shown that installing DSPV systems is beneficial in all provinces/municipalities under the current subsidy, achieving grid parity. Thus, there is no doubt that distributed DSPV systems will have investment value and competitiveness in the future.Relatively few studies focused on the location of the DSPV systems. The quantitative evaluation of solar resources and potential is becoming increasingly accurate due to improvements in the quality of solar radiation data and the us.
