China helped drive global renewable installed capacity to an estimated 913.48GW last year, leading the world for annual capacity additions in solar, biopower, small hydropower and onshore wind.

However, China’s National Development and Reform Commission confirmed reductions in the cut to its onshore wind feed-in tariffs for projects approved after January 1, 2015 or commissioned after January 1, 2016.

Consultancy GlobalData’s practice head for power Ankit Mathur said China consolidated its position as the leading installer of solar power capacity last year as part of a bid to increase renewable technologies and drive down greenhouse gas emissions.

“China became the largest consumer of solar PV modules in 2014, overtaking both Japan and the US,” the analyst said.

“China’s annual solar PV installations have grown rapidly over the past few years, from 500 megawatts in 2010, to 10.6GW in 2014, and an estimated 18.43GW in 2015.

“In 2014, Japan and the US stood second and third, with annual solar PV installations of about 10 GW and 6.2GW, respectively. However, both countries added an estimated 8.2GW each in 2015.”

GlobalData’s latest analyst states that while the major markets of Europe and North America have historically had the best renewables track record, and will continue to expand renewable capacity, developing markets such as China have shown commitment to increasing their installed renewable capacity.

This is driven by an increasing global emphasis on policies tackling climate change.

The most important recent development in global climate change policy in 2015 was the United Nations 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, which proposed a number of ambitious targets.

Mathur said that while “reasonable doubts” have been cast over China’s challenging targets, it has still outdone self-assigned targets in the past.

“China previously set a target of 15GW of solar additions for 2015, and amended this target to 17.8GW in March, which it eventually surpassed,” Mathur noted.

“However, China failed to meet the third revised annual target, set in September of 23.1GW, and it remains to be seen if the country can achieve the ambitious goal of 150GW of solar PV capacity by 2020.”