- China’s industry ministry has proposed minimum average efficiencies of 26.2% for new TOPCon solar cells and 24.2% for new TOPCon modules, with parallel floors for HJT and back-contact lines, in a draft open for comment until 15 November.
- The proposal also caps energy and water use, especially in polysilicon production, keeps a 30% equity-capital ratio for new projects, and requires manufacturers to spend at least 3% of annual sales on R&D.
- It is the second Chinese solar regulatory move in a week, following Beijing’s proposed export controls on solar manufacturing technology, and it targets overcapacity rather than expansion.
China has unveiled a second major solar intervention in a matter of days, and this one targets its own factories. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has proposed new China solar manufacturing standards that would set minimum efficiency thresholds for solar cells and modules, tighten limits on energy and water consumption, and give regulators the power to remove non-compliant manufacturers from the industry’s approved list. The draft is open for public consultation until 15 November 2026.
Last week Joule Post reported on Beijing’s proposal to add 12 solar manufacturing technologies to its export-control catalogue, a move that drew a line around the research frontier. The new manufacturing standards do something different: they draw a line under the factory floor, telling domestic producers that sheer capacity growth is no longer the path to approval.
China solar manufacturing standards: what the draft requires
The new solar cell efficiency standards set a minimum average TOPCon efficiency of 26.2% for new and expanded production lines, 26% for heterojunction (HJT), and 26.6% for back-contact (BC) technologies. The thresholds for modules are set two points lower: 24.2% for TOPCon, 24% for HJT, and 24.4% for BC.
Existing facilities face lower floors, recognising that older lines cannot be retrofitted overnight. Cells made at existing plants would need to average at least 25.3% for TOPCon and HJT, and 25.6% for BC. For modules from existing lines, the minimums are 23.4% for TOPCon and HJT, and 23.7% for BC.
The draft also sets the first formal bars for emerging technologies. New tandem modules would need to reach at least 27% average efficiency, compared with 25% for existing tandem products, while new perovskite modules must clear 20%.
The full threshold table, new lines versus existing plants
The proposal covers six established technology categories plus the two emerging ones, with every figure expressed as an average across production rather than a single best-performing sample. Here is the complete set, as published in the draft:
| Technology | Cells: new/expanded lines | Cells: existing plants | Modules: new/expanded lines | Modules: existing plants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOPCon | 26.2% | 25.3% | 24.2% | 23.4% |
| HJT (heterojunction) | 26.0% | 25.3% | 24.0% | 23.4% |
| BC (back-contact) | 26.6% | 25.6% | 24.4% | 23.7% |
| Tandem modules | 27.0% | 25.0% | ||
| Perovskite modules | 20.0% |
The two-point gap between the new-line cell and module floors is nearly constant across all three mainstream technologies: 26.2% versus 24.2% for TOPCon, 26.0% versus 24.0% for HJT, and 26.6% versus 24.4% for BC. That two-point loss between cell and finished module is the industry’s accepted cost of interconnecting and encapsulating cells into panels, and the draft tracks it closely, which suggests the thresholds were calibrated against real production data rather than chosen as round political numbers.
The gap between new and existing facilities is smaller but still decisive: roughly 0.9 points at the cell level and about 0.8 to 0.9 points at module level. For a plant operating on thin margins in an oversupplied market, lifting average output efficiency by nearly a full percentage point across a production line is a capital-spending problem, not a settings tweak. That is the point. The standard is designed to make subscale, low-efficiency capacity uneconomic to keep running.
Beyond efficiency: energy, water, recycling, and money rules
Efficiency is only one chapter. The draft also caps energy and water consumption in manufacturing, with particular attention to the polysilicon production stage, the most energy-intensive link in the value chain. Waste management, recycling, environmental protection, and worker-safety rules sit alongside encouragement for manufacturers to automate and digitalise their processes.
On the financial side, the draft retains a minimum equity-capital ratio of 30% for new and expanded manufacturing projects, a constraint that directly limits how much debt developers can use to fund new capacity. It also obliges manufacturers to invest at least 3% of their annual sales revenue in research, development, and process improvement.
Perhaps the most consequential administrative change is procedural: authorities would conduct regular reviews of which manufacturers meet the standards, and could remove companies from the compliant list if they fall short. Inclusion on the industry list has historically mattered for financing, permitting, and buyer confidence, so the draft turns compliance into an ongoing condition rather than a one-time certification.
Two moves in a week: export controls and the factory floor
Viewed alongside last week’s proposed export controls on solar manufacturing technology, the pattern is hard to miss. The export controls protected the frontier, restricting the licensing of production know-how for tandem cells at 30% efficiency and above, perovskite modules at 18% and above, and the underlying polysilicon and wafer processes. The manufacturing standards protect the floor, forcing out the weakest domestic capacity.
Together, the two drafts describe a coherent strategy: keep the advanced processes inside China, and consolidate the domestic industry around players that can meet rising technical and financial bars. The stated rationale is to curb overcapacity and push the industry away from price-driven expansion toward technology, quality, and efficiency.
Why a 24.4% module floor bites the laggards, not the leaders
Here is the arithmetic that matters most for how these China solar manufacturing standards will land. The draft sets the minimum efficiency for new back-contact modules at 24.4%. But commercial BC modules are already shipping at 25% efficiency, led by AIKO and LONGi, according to TaiyangNews’ October 2026 top-modules listing. In other words, the proposed floor for new factories sits a full 0.6 points below what the technology leaders already sell.
That is not a drafting flaw but the defining feature of the proposal: a standard set above the leaders’ output would push the frontier, while one set below it but above the weakest plants is a floor-raising exercise that punishes laggards without asking leaders to do anything they are not already doing.
The economic logic is aimed squarely at China solar overcapacity. In a flooded market, the survivors are the lowest-cost producers, which in a downturn are often the oldest, dirtiest, least efficient plants. Those are precisely the facilities the new efficiency floors and the energy-consumption limits would strand, with the 30% equity-capital rule and the delisting power adding financial and administrative gates on top.
Enforcement remains the open question. Drafts can be watered down during consultation, and enforcement has historically been the weak link in China’s solar policy cycles. But as a statement of direction it is unambiguous: Beijing no longer wants more solar factories. It wants fewer, better ones, and it is prepared to use both export controls and domestic standards to get there.
