First Solar had planned to build the 2,000-megawatt Ordos project in Inner Mongolia and sell the output to China’s power grid. Terms for selling the power were never agreed to, said Steve Krum, a spokesman for Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar.

“Due to the market environment, we aren’t going to pursue the Ordos project further,” Krum said today in an interview. The plant was never included in the company’s pipeline of contracted projects, he said.

Ordos was First Solar’s first foray into China, the world’s largest producer of both solar panels and greenhouse gases. First Solar agreed to build the project and consider opening a manufacturing plant in the region in a memorandum of understanding with Chinese officials on Sept. 8, 2009.

First Solar rose 13 percent the day the plan was announced. The shares fell 0.5 percent to $63.38 at 12:29 p.m. today in New York.

“Science-based decision support systems, combined with sophisticated data analysis is exactly what the Chinese government needs.”

The global PV market saw 38.7 GW of new capacity installed in 2013, bringing the cumulative installed PV capacity to 140.6 GW, the report said. New PV installations in China saw the addition of 12 GW in 2013, up 232 percent year on year, demonstrating that the global PV market has gradually shifted from Europe to Asia.

The global new energy industry experienced sustained growth in 2013, as governments aligned their national energy mix to eliminate pollutants and improve the ecological environment, China New Energy Chamber of Commerce vice president Zeng Shaojun said. Chinese companies will be investing more heavily in technological advances and accelerate their pace of going global, in an effort to increase their shares in the global new energy market, Zeng added.

Since 2012, Chinese regulators have been releasing a series of policies and measures, including the State Council’s Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of the PV industry, significantly propelling the development of the country’s solar power market. As of the end of 2013, China’s grid-connected solar capacity reached 14.79 GW, up 340 percent year on year.

During the previous few years, China’s PV export demand had plunged on weak economic growth in Europe and the U.S., lower subsidies for exports to major European and U.S. markets as well as protectionist policies. However, the PV industry took a favorable turn in 2013 thanks to the country’s optimization of its export structure by shifting to emerging markets. China’s exports of solar cells and modules to Asia surged 124 percent year on year to US $5.5 billion in 2013, accounting for 44.8 percent of the total, while those to Europe fell 62 percent to US $3.72 billion. During that same year, the country exported US $570 million of solar cells and modules to Africa, up 387 percent from the previous year.

In 2013 many industry players, including Ningxia Sunshine Silicon Industry, were forced to declare bankruptcy due to a severe overcapacity in the global PV market. The exit of weaker competitors brought about a higher market concentration, giving an impetus to a new round, yet, more structured development of China’s PV industry.

China’s PV industry is expected to see a continued recovery in 2014, as economies in Europe and the U.S. stabilize and demand from emerging markets increases. The National Energy Administration announced on May 22 that the country aims to add 14 GW of installed PV capacity in 2014, up 24 percent from 2013.

“China’s PV products previously were mainly exported to the U.S. and to European countries, but now exports to emerging markets account for more than 80 percent of the total,” said Shen Fuxin, secretary general of the Zhejiang Solar Energy Industry Association.

Since 2011, EU countries and the U.S. have initiated anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations over PV imports from China. Most recently, the EU imposed definitive measures on Chinese solar panels in the form of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties. These duties, ranging from 47.7 percent to 64.9 percent, will be valid for the two years starting 6 December 2013. This lead to dramatic decreases in the level of exports from many Chinese PV companies and was a major factor in Suntech Power’s bankruptcy, a leader in the field.

In order to offset the decrease, the PV industry across Zhejiang province began to expand into new markets while improving product competitiveness through technical innovations.

The more than two years of efforts are paying off. In 2013, the province’s PV industry achieved sales of 70 billion yuan (approx. US$11.2 billion), with Risen Energy, Zhejiang Sunflower Light Energy Science & Technology, ReneSola and JinkoSolar seeing continuous improvement in their competitiveness.

Of the $340 million export number, solar cell exports brought in $290 million, up 23 percent year-on-year, with the top five export destinations being Japan (+121 percent), Taiwan (+31 percent), ASEAN (+823 percent), the U.K. (+497 percent) and South Africa (+600 percent). “Exports to the U.S. and the European continent accounted for only 17 percent of the total,” said Shen.

Solar cell exports via the province’s Ningbo port increased despite the down market, thanks to the expansion efforts. During the first quarter of this year, exports via the port totaled 3.16 million units, valued at 1.67 billion yuan, up 53.7 percent and 13.4 percent from a year earlier, respectively.

Exports to emerging markets demonstrated an outstanding performance, with those to South Korea surging 112 times to 672,000 units, India 58.3 percent to 430,000 units and South Africa 140 times to 396,000 units.

Also dampened by EU tariffs, Ningbo’s solar cell exports to EU countries amounted to only 264,000 units in the first three months of this year, down 74.4 percent over the same period of last year.

While export volume of solar cells increased this year, the average export price dropped 26.2 percent from a year earlier, a source at Ningbo Customs revealed. This was mainly due to the intensifying price war between solar cell makers. It is encouraging that the city of Ningbo has issued new rules whereby the local government provides additional subsidies for qualified PV modules and encourages PV exporters to strengthen development of the domestic market.