@article {1434581,
	title = {Improved air quality in China can enhance solar power performance and accelerate carbon neutrality targets},
	journal = {One Earth},
	volume = {5},
	year = {2022},
	pages = {550-562},
	abstract = {China forecasts that a 14-fold increase in photovoltaic installations is needed to meet 2060 carbon-neutrality targets. In light of the fact that air pollution impairs photovoltaic performance,\&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/pollution-control" title="Learn more about pollution control from ScienceDirect{\textquoteright}s AI-generated Topic Pages">pollution control</a>\&nbsp;could reduce the installation requirement, but research has not yet taken into account the coeval impact of unfavorable meteorological conditions, which also impair performance. Here, we employ a coupled model to determine the impact of air-pollution control policies on China{\textquoteright}s photovoltaic power output in the presence of varying meteorological conditions between 1995 and 2019. We find that the benefits of air-pollution control introduced in 2004 were only partially offset by unfavorable meteorological conditions (primarily in Central and South China) and resulted in solar-power performance improvement of 0.9\%/decade from 2008 onward. Further analysis shows that solar-power output in 2020 was 1.7\% higher thanks to air-pollution control and that more stringent air-quality targets could reduce the demand for photovoltaic installed capacity needed to meet the 2060 carbon-neutrality target.},
	url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332222002032},
	author = {Shi Chen and Lu, Xi and Nielsen, Chris P. and Guannan Geng and McElroy, Michael B. and Wang, Shuxiao and Hao, Jiming}
}
