From Scale to Technology: Pathways to Decarbonization in China’s Photovoltaic Manufacturing Sector

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides empirical evidence on decoupling and structural decomposition for China's PV sector, useful for climate-economy modeling.

🏢実務担当者:Offers insights on managing supply chain emissions and balancing growth with decarbonization in clean energy manufacturing.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights need for differentiated policies to achieve strong decoupling, relevant for industrial and climate policy design.

While critical to the global energy transition, China’s photovoltaic (PV) sector exemplifies the ‘green paradox’ of clean energy supply chains, where the rapid expansion of solar infrastructure generates significant upstream carbon emissions. This study provides a long-term (2000–2022) empirical examination of this tension, investigating the decoupling relationship between industrial growth and embodied carbon emissions. Employing a multi-regional input–output model, we quantify the evolving carbon footprint of China’s PV manufacturing. We then apply the Tapio decoupling framework—which measures whether emissions grow slower than, or decline relative to, economic output—and structural decomposition analysis to identify the key drivers of emission changes over two decades. Finally, we project future decarbonization pathways (2023–2030) under four policy scenarios using Monte Carlo simulations. Our findings reveal a fundamental transition: since 2015, technological progress has become the dominant force for emission reductions, contributing 78% to cumulative reductions and marking a shift from a ‘scale-driven’ to a ‘technology-driven’ growth model. However, rising global demand continues to push total emissions upward, resulting in ‘weak decoupling’ (emissions grow, but slower than output) rather than the ‘strong decoupling’ (absolute emissions decline) required for carbon neutrality. Scenario analysis indicates that strong decoupling is achievable by 2030 under ambitious policy and technology scenarios, with the Technological Breakthrough scenario projecting a 39% emission reduction alongside 103% output growth. Nevertheless, even under optimistic assumptions, approximately 29,000 tons of residual emissions remain due to the inherent energy intensity of upstream processes like polysilicon production. These findings support the development of differentiated policies that balance industrial competitiveness with carbon neutrality goals, highlighting that China’s PV sector—while enabling global decarbonization—must itself undergo a deep decarbonization transition.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.3390/su18063137first seen 2026-05-15 20:10:16