Since the beginning of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the installed capacity of photovoltaics has grown rapidly, and the accompanying demand for land has also risen. In the statistics of 2022, energy land accounts for 12% of the total land use area of the national approved construction land pre-approval projects3%。However, behind the scale expansion, the contradiction of land use is intensifying, and land risk has become one of the key considerations that new energy investors must pay attention to. Some PV projects have been ordered to be demolished due to illegal construction, which has brought huge economic losses to investors. Recently, Huaneng (Danzhou) photovoltaic power generation *** was fined 3.43 million yuan for illegally occupying land.
The reason for the punishment is to occupy the land located in the Leman Village Committee of Yaxing Town, Danzhou City without approval in accordance with the law, and use it for the construction of a booster station of Huaneng Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Photovoltaic Power Generation Project.
According to the penalty requirements, Huaneng (Danzhou) Photovoltaic Power Generation shall be ordered to return the illegally occupied land and confiscate the newly built buildings and other facilities on the illegally occupied land. At the same time, according to the illegal occupation of land area 857630 square meters, a fine of 400 yuan per square meter will be imposed, and the total fine will be 3430520 yuan.
Illegal construction is not an isolated case!
In recent years, it has been common for PV projects to be penalized for illegal construction. For example, the Jiangsu Sihong Leader Project, which has caused a sensation in the industry, was originally a well-planned key project of enriching the people in the local area and was known as a "star" project. However, due to the failure to go through the water administrative permit procedures, the project became an illegal construction on the water, and was eventually forced to be demolished, resulting in the investment of 7.5 billion yuan in vain.
In addition to incomplete procedures, illegal occupation of land and construction without approval also account for the majority. For example, Huyuetong New Energy in Xinzhou City was fined 1.4 million yuan for illegally occupying land to build a photovoltaic booster station, the photovoltaic project in Gaoling Village, Gaoling Township, Susong County, Anhui Province was fined for illegal land transfer, a photovoltaic project in Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province was demolished for illegally occupying land, and Lingao Yue Hydropower Energy was fined 2.99 million yuan for illegally occupying land to build a photovoltaic power station......
**Intervention of the hand!
The illegal occupation of land has attracted great attention. In recent years, local governments have also stepped up their efforts to investigate. For example, Hebei, Jiangsu, Henan, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shandong and other provinces have carried out a comprehensive survey of agriculture and photovoltaic complementary projects, and strictly investigated the problem of occupying cultivated land. Among them, Hebei has canceled a number of agricultural and photovoltaic project indicators to resolutely curb the "non-agricultural" behavior of cultivated land.
As early as May 2022, the Ministry of Water Resources issued the "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Water Resources on Strengthening the Spatial Control of the Shoreline of Rivers and Lakes", which clearly stipulates that photovoltaic power plant projects shall not be built in rivers, lakes and reservoirs. For the construction of photovoltaic and wind power projects around lakes and reservoirs, scientific demonstration must be carried out and strictly controlled.
In March this year, the Ministry of Natural Resources, together with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and the National Energy Administration, jointly issued a notice on standardizing land use management. Among them, for new and expanded photovoltaic power generation projects, it is clearly stipulated that permanent basic farmland, basic grassland, grade protection forest land and key state-owned forest areas in Northeast Inner Mongolia shall not be occupied.
Conclusion:
With the continuous growth of photovoltaic installed capacity and the prosperity of the downstream market, we can see that the available land resources are becoming more and more scarce, which has become an important factor restricting the development of new energy. Therefore, the rational use of land, the realization of land conservation and space utilization, and the improvement of land value will inevitably become an important direction for the future development of new energy. For investors, it is necessary to be cautious about the compliance of PV land to avoid subsequent risks. **NE-SALON