China has set itself a target to reach an installed solar generation capacity of 70GW by 2017.

The figure was part of a document released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as part of a strategy to tackle air pollution.

“Regarding the PV-related targets, this spells out 35GW by 2015, including 20GW of distributed PV and 15GW of solar farms. The total target is the same as announced before,” Ray Lian, senior analyst at NPD Solarbuzz told PV Tech.

“The 70GW by 2017, including 35GW of distributed PV, this is a new announcement and is a bit more aggressive than the 100GW by 2020 announced before,” said Lian.

The government has capped this year’s feed-in tariff quota at 14GW, with around 8GW set aside for distributed projects. This is neither a target nor a limit on how much PV will be installed in the country this year.