China, the world’s largest energy consumer, is stepping up efforts to promote solar power, aiming to have 100 GW of installed capacity by 2020, said official documents released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) released on December 24.

In a bid to battle air pollution and reduce carbon footprint, China has increased the number of solar power demonstration projects to 30 from 18 it planned originally, with a combined capacity of 3.35 GW.

The government also required grid operators to connect qualified solar power stations by the year end, a move industry insiders said was aimed at achieving this year’s target of at least 10 GW grid-connected capacity.

The target should be achievable, though total on-grid solar power capacity was only 3.79 GW in the first three quarters, sources said.

Distributed solar power is also a major focus of the government, industry sources further predicted a busy first quarter for the solar industry.

For the first nine months this year, solar power stations in China generated 18 TWh of electricity, doubling the total volume generated during year 2013, showed official statistics.