On 23 April 2020, Solar Photovoltaic Interventions Have Reduced Rural Poverty in China, the latest paper co-authored by our school’s lecturer Wu Kai and his research team members, was published online by Nature Communications, a subject journal below Nature, in the form of research article. Its co-authors include Professor Zhang Huiming from Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Assistant Professor Qiu Yueming from the University of Maryland, Assistant Professor Gabriel Chan from the University of Minnesota, Professor Wang Shouyang from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Professor Zhou Dequn from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Since 2013, China has carried out large-scale systemic solar photovoltaic power generation projects to reduce rural poverty. Despite the great importance attached by the Chinese government to such poverty alleviation projects, there is still no systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of the poverty alleviation policy through solar photovoltaic power generation projects. Nevertheless, this paper looks into the effect of relevant policy measures on per capita disposable income in rural areas at the county level. Based on the panel data about 211 counties chosen to pilot poverty alleviation through photovoltaic power generation projects in China in 2013-2016, it finds that such policy could increase the per capita disposable income in rural areas by around 7%-8%. The effect of the policy was visibly positive in the year when it was implemented, and further grew in the next 2-3 years. Poverty alleviation through photovoltaic power generation projects demonstrated more obvious effects in areas with lower incomes. The research stated in the paper has not only proved the remarkable effect of China’s strategy of poverty alleviation through photovoltaic power generation projects, but also offered experiences for other developing countries.
The research, which lasted around two years, was funded by the Key Projects of the National Social Science Fund of China (16ZDA047) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71834003), the National Social Science Fund of China (19BGL185) and the innovation research program of CUFE, among others.
Nature Communications, a prestigious subject journal published by the Nature Publishing Group in 2010, is dedicated to publishing high-quality research papers in all areas of life, physical, chemical, social and Earth sciences, with impact factor reaching 11.88 in 2018.
