Located in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, is the world's first national-level outdoor empirical experiment platform for photovoltaic and energy storage - the National Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Empirical Experiment Platform (Daqing Base), which is constructed and operated by State Power Investment Corporation. As the first "national-level" empirical experiment platform approved by the National Energy Administration, since its operation started in November 2021, the Daqing Base has developed into an important engine serving the high-quality development of China's and even the global photovoltaic and energy storage industries.

The platform has a total planned scale of 1.05 million kilowatts, with more than 640 empirical experiment schemes arranged, positioned as an open public service platform for the development of the photovoltaic and energy storage industries. At present, the third phase of construction has been successfully completed, with an installed capacity of 500,000 kilowatts and the number of empirical schemes increased to 389, basically covering mainstream products and new products with promotion and application value in the photovoltaic and energy storage industries. On May 16, 2025, the platform's 2024 annual data results conference was held in Beijing, systematically revealing the performance differences of photovoltaic and energy storage equipment in seven major fields such as meteorological environment, components, and inverters in alpine and high-latitude regions, providing scientific support for the construction of new energy systems and the high-quality development of the industry.

Building a Full-Dimensional Empirical System to Fill the Gap in the Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Industry

China is the world's largest photovoltaic manufacturing and application country, and the energy storage industry has huge development potential. However, for a long time, almost all products in the domestic market have been released and promoted based on laboratory data, and there is almost a blank in outdoor practical application data, which makes it impossible to scientifically and effectively evaluate the actual operation performance of built new energy stations. The establishment of the Daqing Base is precisely to fill this key gap.

Daqing City is rich in solar and wind energy resources, with flat terrain, and has the advantage of carrying out large-scale and continuous outdoor empirical experiments under the same conditions; the unused saline-alkali land, water surface and other surface environments are diverse, which is conducive to carrying out outdoor empirical experiments in various composite development and application scenarios. Therefore, the world's first national-level outdoor empirical experiment platform for photovoltaic and energy storage was settled in Daqing, and is constructed and operated by State Power Investment Corporation.

The platform has six empirical experiment zones, namely four product empirical experiment zones for photovoltaic modules, inverters, brackets and energy storage products, and two system empirical experiment zones for energy storage systems and equipment matching. In the four product empirical experiment zones, by controlling other variables, targeted empirical tests are carried out on a certain product; the energy storage system empirical experiment zone focuses on studying the system-level performance of energy storage systems combined with new energy; the equipment matching experiment zone carries out matching analysis and research between system products for different combinations of various components, inverters and box-type transformers.

Forming Multi-Field Empirical Results to Reveal Differences in Equipment Performance

The 2024 empirical experiment data show that TOPCon technology type modules have the highest power generation. From 2022 to 2024, the average power generation of TOPCon is 2.02% and 1.43% higher than that of PERC and IBC modules respectively. The annual power generation per megawatt of phase II TOPCon modules is 0.99% and 4.83% higher than that of PERC and HJT respectively. The empirical study also found that HJT modules have lower power generation in low-temperature environments, but when the ambient temperature exceeds 25 degrees Celsius, the power generation is equivalent to that of PERC modules, and gradually becomes dominant as the temperature rises.

After three years of operation, the measured Chinese efficiency of different types of inverters has decreased, with a decrease of 0.04% in the first year and 0.34% in the second year, but still remains above 97.5%. The inversion efficiency of domestic IGBTs decreased by 0.27%, and that of imported IGBT inverters decreased by 0.18%. Different input voltages have a great impact on inverter efficiency. With the increase of input voltage, the proportion of high-load operation time increases, and the inverter efficiency increases by 0.15%.

In 2024, consistent with the trend of previous years, the power generation of dual-axis brackets is the highest, followed by vertical single-axis brackets, inclined single-axis brackets (25° inclination), flat single-axis (10° inclination), inclined single-axis (15° inclination), and full-dimensional brackets. The three-year average values are 24.58%, 19.14%, 17.65%, 15.90%, 12.28% and 12.21% higher than that of fixed brackets (45° inclination) respectively. Tracking brackets have greater power generation gain in cloudy and cloudy weather conditions.

After three years of operation, the efficiency of the energy storage body and system of phase I lithium batteries is basically stable, but the overall trend is slightly decreasing. The energy storage battery capacity shows different degrees of attenuation, among which the capacity of lithium iron phosphate energy storage 1C (500kW/500kWh) attenuates by 3.46%, and that of lithium iron phosphate energy storage 0.5C (1000kW/1680kWh) attenuates by 3.44%. The ambient temperature has a significant impact on system efficiency. The system efficiency is up to 80% in the range of 0-5℃, and the lowest is 70% when the temperature is higher than 25℃, with an impact range of 10%.

The output curve of a single energy storage system combined with photovoltaic and storage is relatively smooth, with good regulation effect; mixed energy storage has relatively poor operation effect due to the difficulty in strategy coordination among different types of energy storage manufacturers and inconsistent response regulation time, which needs further optimization and improvement.

Deeply Cultivating Big Data Value Mining to Empower Industrial Innovation and Development

The Daqing Base has independently developed a real-time online analysis system to achieve accurate collection of massive data, including the establishment of more than 40 analysis models such as irradiation, temperature and spectrum, and the development of more than 150 automatic analysis reports. The base collects more than 300 GB of data every day. The proportion of intelligent analysis has basically reached 100%, and data analysis is completed automatically by machines.

Based on empirical data, the platform provides relevant references for the industry: the design should comprehensively consider the inclination angle and land area; equipment selection should focus on product environmental adaptability; system integration should pay attention to the collaborative adaptability between products; scheme design should focus on the friendliness of new power systems; and strengthen the research on dynamic control strategies of photovoltaic and energy storage systems. At present, relevant contents have been widely used in the construction of new energy systems to improve resource utilization efficiency.

The empirical analysis results also provide suggestions for adjusting renewable energy planning and power planning for Daqing City, where it is located. For example, the experimental results show that the power generation loss due to shading is lower than the land occupation cost saved by reducing the spacing between photovoltaic panels, so the local area has redesigned and planned relevant contents.

With the approval of the warm temperate zone base in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, the Daqing Base and the Pingdingshan Base will carry out empirical experiments in multiple climate types in the future, forming complementary results and providing systematic solutions for the large-scale application of new energy technologies. The person in charge of the Yellow River Company of State Power Investment Corporation said that with the approval of the warm temperate zone base in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, the two places will carry out empirical experiments in multiple climate types in the future, forming complementary results and providing systematic solutions for the large-scale application of new energy technologies.

As the world's first outdoor empirical experiment platform, the National Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Empirical Experiment Platform (Daqing Base) has become an important engine leading the high-quality development of the industry and serving the construction of the national new energy system. The platform will continue to deepen the functions of "empirical research, experiment, testing and certification", promote the transformation of scientific research results into new productive forces, and provide solid data support and technical guarantee for China to achieve the "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" goals.