The Impacts of Photovoltaic Deployment in Rural China

Xiaohui Tian, Yifang Tang, Yifeng Guo and Pengfei Liu

No 361211, 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: As solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure expands rapidly across rural China, its economic implications for local communities have attracted increasing attention. This study provides a high-resolution, micro-level analysis of the impact of PV deployment on rural household income and energy use. We link nationally representative household panel data with satellite imaging data on PV sites between 2010 and 2022 to construct a time-varying measure of PV density within a 1–10 km radius of 381 villages. Using two-way fixed effects and a continuous-treatment difference-in-differences design, we find that PV deployment within a 3–5 km radius significantly increases household disposable income by approximately 8% and raises essential fuel expenditure by about 11%. These effects attenuate with distance from the PV sites. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the fuel expenditure effect is more pronounced among poor households, those located in heating regions, and households using clean or electric heating equipment. We find no significant differences in impact by income level, administrative poverty status, or agricultural income dependence, which provide important insights into the distributive consequences of rural energy transitions. The findings offer empirical evidence to support the design of equitable, spatially targeted PV development policies in developing regions.

Keywords: Resource/Energy; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/361211/files/1 ... hina_Yifang_TANG.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea25:361211

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.361211

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().