I. Global Rooftop PV Market: Another Record High

In 2024, solar energy achieved remarkable installation growth worldwide, with rooftop PV playing a key role. According to Rystad Energy, global annual solar installations continued to grow rapidly in 2024, with distributed (broadly rooftop) PV additions holding steady at around 190 GW, similar to 2023. The IEA-PVPS report Trends in Photovoltaic Applications 2025 indicated that global PV additions in 2024 reached approximately 553–601 GW, an increase of 29% year-on-year, with distributed rooftop PV accounting for nearly 60% of new capacity. This growth is mainly attributed to three factors: (1) sustained policy support from countries pursuing carbon neutrality; (2) continued improvements in PV module efficiency and declining generation costs; and (3) China’s complete industrial chain, which has significantly reduced the procurement and construction costs of rooftop PV systems worldwide.

In terms of market size, the global rooftop PV installation market reached approximately $128.7 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $425.3 billion by 2033, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 14.2%. The Asia-Pacific region remains the largest rooftop PV market. Meanwhile, the U.S. and European rooftop PV markets are also expanding rapidly – the U.S. added about 47 GW of new PV capacity in 2024, a 40% year-on-year increase. Notably, in terms of technology, n-type modules accounted for 70% of global production, and bifacial modules held a dominant market share of over 75%.

II. China Market: +118 GW Distributed PV, “Shift South” Becomes Key Word

In 2024, China’s PV market continued to lead the world. According to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), China added 277.57 GWAC of new PV capacity in 2024, up 28% year-on-year, bringing cumulative installed capacity to 886 GWAC. Of this, distributed PV added 118.18 GWAC, accounting for about 43% of the total. Within distributed PV, commercial & industrial (C&I) rooftop PV saw particularly strong growth, rising 68% to 88.63 GWAC; residential (household) rooftop PV added 29.55 GW, a decline of about 32% year-on-year. Given that total distributed PV additions grew 23% year-on-year, China’s distributed PV capacity is expected to further expand to about 143 GW in 2025.

One trend worth in-depth analysis is the notable “shift south” of China’s distributed PV market center in 2024. The three provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong – also the most economically developed provinces for C&I activity – replaced the traditional leaders Shandong, Henan, and Hebei as the top three in distributed PV installed capacity. Jiangsu led with 17.97 GW of new distributed PV, Zhejiang followed with 12.04 GW, and Guangdong ranked third with 11.16 GW. This reflects a shift from “residential-centric” to “C&I self-investment” as the main driver of distributed PV, and also indicates that PV technology has achieved a major breakthrough in adoption on commercial and industrial rooftops.

In terms of cumulative capacity, by the end of 2024, China’s cumulative distributed PV capacity reached 375 GW, accounting for 42% of the country’s total installed PV capacity, with cumulative penetration steadily increasing compared to previous years.

At the same time, China’s PV utilization level remained stable in 2024. Domestic PV generation reached 834.1 TWh, an increase of 44% year-on-year, accounting for 8% of total social electricity consumption. The national average PV utilization rate was 96.8%, reflecting a high level of PV integration.

III. Policy Drivers & Rural Revitalization: Rooftop PV Deployment Across Sectors

In 2024, both national and local governments introduced supportive policies for rooftop distributed PV, strongly promoting industry development. Policies such as the “county-wide (district/city) rollout” and “Thousand Villages and Ten Thousand Townships Sunshine Action” for large-scale distributed PV development were deepened, providing initial investment subsidies, grid-connection incentives, and tax reductions for C&I owners and rural residents.

In 2024, multiple localities, including Suzhou and Jiashan County in Zhejiang Province, issued subsidy guidance for county-wide and village-level pilot programs. Suzhou offered a 30% subsidy for projects under its county-wide pilot from 2023 to 2026; Jiashan County provided one-time subsidies of 250,000 to 300,000 RMB for village-level projects of 500 kW to 1,000 kW.

In addition, Danfeng County in Shaanxi Province explored “Thousand Villages and Ten Thousand Households PV + Rural Revitalization” demonstration projects, combining village/town-wide rooftop and solar-heating integrated models. Tongyu County in Jilin Province further developed residential PV guarantee projects to benefit both enterprises and village collectives. PV revenue has become an important source of guaranteed income and collective economic growth for some rural villages.

Another major policy in November 2024 came from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and six other departments, issuing the Guiding Opinions on Vigorously Implementing Renewable Energy Alternative Actions. The document explicitly requires that “solar PV systems shall be installed wherever conditions allow” on new factories and public buildings, and encourages adding PV systems to existing building rooftops. This signals a policy shift from project guidance to standardized mandates and norms. Policy support will further expand the coverage of rooftop PV.

IV. Technological Advances: Higher Efficiency, Lighter-Weight BIPV Products Emerge

In 2024, PV technology continued to innovate and evolve. Notably, while laboratory efficiencies of perovskite modules kept setting new records, a number of high-efficiency cells and innovative building-integrated PV (BIPV) products entered practical application in the rooftop PV segment:

World records for crystalline silicon/perovskite tandem cells were broken. In 2024, Chinese company Longi achieved 34.6% efficiency for a perovskite/silicon tandem cell. Silicon back-contact heterojunction (HBC) cells (Longi) and polysilicon cells (JinkoSolar) also broke historical lab efficiency records, suggesting that the commercialization of multi-junction cells with even higher efficiencies may arrive sooner than expected.

For rigid BIPV products, TBC modules with efficiencies exceeding 24% have debuted in China: Huanghe Company’s self-developed N-type TBC high-efficiency crystalline silicon modules achieved maximum efficiency above 24.0%, suitable for high-end rooftop distributed projects.

The lightweight and diversified transparent morphology trends in BIPV products became more pronounced. A ventilated lightweight crystalline silicon PV module (VL-BIPV) developed by Nanjing University of Science and Technology adds only 6 kg/m² and improves cooling performance on rainy days, achieving 1.07 times the power efficiency of conventional modules, with annual power generation exceeding the benchmark by 28.67 kWh/W.

Trina Green Building’s new photovoltaic flat tile product, released in late October 2024, is thinner and lighter than standard dual-glass technology, offers good installation compatibility, and can be customized in color and texture, providing more modern architectural design options, with module efficiency reaching 19.4%. Thin-film materials and photovoltaic glass co-developed with architectural design have also expanded BIPV solutions to new scenarios such as roadside noise barriers and building curtain walls. This trend further advances the dual functionality of building-integrated PV materials – building envelope plus power generation.

V. Economics & Falling Costs: PV Approaches “Cheapest Source of Electricity”

In 2024, the economics of rooftop PV became one of its most outstanding advantages in the entire distributed energy system:

Module prices continued to drop, hitting historic lows. In 2024, prices in the Chinese market fell by 40% for polysilicon, 48% for wafers, 36% for cells, and 15% for modules. By October, the average price of N-type TOPCon modules had fallen to 0.673 RMB/W. PV module prices below 0.68 RMB/W may trigger certain regulatory concerns. This has dramatically lowered the entry barrier for rooftop projects.

A European PV empirical study showed that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for new high-efficiency modules was about 8.8%–9.5% lower than for the previous generation of PERC cells.

In the Pearl River Delta region of China, the total available rooftop area is 2,493 km², with an average annual generation potential of 44.0–72.1 billion kWh. Economic assessment suggests that if promoted on a large enough scale, the net social benefit could reach 215.1 billion RMB, with cost recovery possible in the fourth year. Studies in emerging markets such as Brazil and India have shown internal rates of return (IRR) of over 15% for some projects, highlighting strong economic self-motivation.

The “self-consumption, surplus to grid” business model is rapidly spreading across industrial plants, commercial facilities, and rural homes. Combining storage and virtual power plants (VPPs) further smooths consumption and price volatility, improving economics. In 2024, about two-thirds of Germany’s solar power came from rooftops, and German utilities have demonstrated the use of VPP technology to manage high penetrations of rooftop PV.

VI. Application Cases: From Urban C&I to Rural Revitalization

Reported project cases in 2024 further demonstrate that rooftop distributed PV can be effectively deployed across diverse scenarios:

Urban industrial parks & commercial buildings: The “Hangzhou Deqing Yabo 4 MW Rooftop PV Project” by Zhejiang Energy used six workshop roofs in an industrial park to install 7,123 modules, generating 3.5 million kWh of green electricity annually and reducing CO₂ emissions by about 3,000 tons per year. The Ningming County distributed PV project in Guangxi utilized 35,500 m² of sheep shed roofs for a 4.3 MW power station. The Jiuquan Xinda Industrial Park PV project, with smart green power solutions from Huawei, began trial operation in September.

Rural revitalization & residential market: As of now, more than 6 million rural households nationwide have installed residential PV power stations, with cumulative capacity reaching 150 GW. According to CICC estimates, actual residential demand in China in 2024 was about 46 GW, up about 7% year-on-year. By renting out their rooftops or purchasing and installing their own systems, rural residents enjoy low-cost clean energy while securing additional ongoing income.

BIPV in specialized buildings: Longi’s first curved-roof coal shed BIPV PV project at the Hainan Ledian Power Plant successfully withstood severe typhoons and other environmental challenges.