China installed 217 GW of new solar power in 2023, prompting many (including the China Photovoltaic Industry Association) to speculate that the country had accelerated its renewable energy additions about as far as it could – and that transmission and distribution issues, affecting both utility-scale and distributed categories, would see a modest decline that year. We at Rethink Energy instead expected a slight growth to some 240 GW or so in 2024, but even this was exceeded, with 277 GW installed. When China’s domestic demand finally falters, as it finally must either this year or next, the oversupply and low prices of solar modules (as well as other equipment such as energy storage batteries and wind turbines to a lesser…