Xiamen’s 15th Five-Year Plan sets the tone: With a PV target of 1.3 GW, the era of “adaptability” opportunities for sola

On April 20, 2026, the Xiamen Municipal People's Government issued the "Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of Xiamen," clearly stating: Achieve an installed PV capacity of 1.3 GW, promote comprehensive "PV+" development, build a distributed PV dispatch platform, explore direct green power connections, and cultivate zero-carbon parks and green factories.

This is not an ordinary municipal plan, but a clear statement on energy transition from a major economic hub on the southeastern coast. For the PV industry, Xiamen and the broader Fujian market are sending a clear signal: PV is shifting from an "option" to a "necessity," and the ability to "install successfully and perform reliably" will become the core competitive advantage.

Several key points in the plan deserve close attention from PV practitioners:

• "Achieve an installed PV capacity of 1.3 GW"

  Xiamen has a small land area with scarce land resources, leaving limited space for ground-mounted power plants. This means the 1.3 GW target must be achieved primarily through distributed PV – industrial factories, public institutions, commercial buildings, and even residential rooftops will all become battlegrounds for incremental growth.

• "Promote comprehensive 'PV+' development"

  Behind "PV+" lies the diversification of application scenarios. PV + parks, PV + transportation, PV + buildings – no longer simply laying panels, but deeply integrating various building forms and energy usage scenarios.

• "Cultivate zero-carbon parks and green factories"

  For export-oriented enterprises and energy-intensive industries, carbon footprint directly impacts international competitiveness. The construction of zero-carbon parks and green factories means self-consumed green electricity will become a necessity.

• "Explore direct green power connections and build microgrids"

  The exploration of direct green power connections opens up greater space for distributed PV consumption, making "next-door electricity sales" and park-level microgrids possible.

The goals are clear, but reality is challenging. PV installation in Xiamen and the coastal Fujian region faces three typical difficulties:

• First, insufficient load-bearing capacity of existing building rooftops.

  Fujian has numerous industrial factories, warehouses, and public buildings from earlier construction periods, which were not designed with PV loads in mind. Traditional glass modules weigh approximately 12–15 kg per square meter, and with mounting systems added, many aging roofs simply cannot bear the load.

• Second, frequent typhoons along the coast create extremely high installation requirements.

  Fujian is a typhoon-prone area. The mounting systems and clamp-based installation methods of traditional PV face risks of being torn off during extreme weather. This requires PV systems not only to "install successfully" but also to "withstand the elements."

• Third, curved or irregular roofs cannot accommodate installation.

  The curved roofs of port warehouses, domes of sports venues, streamlined roofs of high-speed rail stations – these iconic buildings' rooftops are precisely the "no-go zones" for rigid modules, yet they are important scenarios for "PV+."

These issues exist nationwide but are particularly prominent in coastal cities like Xiamen, where there are many existing buildings and frequent typhoons.

Lightweight flexible PV technology is precisely the key to solving the above pain points.

• For "insufficient load-bearing capacity": Flexible modules weigh only about 30% of traditional modules and require no penetrating brackets – they are installed with direct adhesion. The load pressure on aging factory roofs is greatly reduced, making previously "unsafe" roofs feasible.
• For "typhoon risks": Adhesive installation integrates the modules with the roof surface as a single unit, eliminating weak points found in mounting systems and actually improving wind uplift resistance. In coastal typhoon zones, this "adhered" approach is more reliable than "raised" systems.
• For "irregular structures": Flexible modules are bendable and conformable, with a minimum bending radius of 0.5 meters, perfectly adapting to curved roofs, cylindrical surfaces, domes, and any other irregular shapes. Places that "could not be installed" before can now be installed.

This is not a "nice-to-have" technology but a practical solution to the core contradiction of "unable to install on existing rooftops" under Xiamen's 1.3 GW distributed PV target.

Xiamen has limited land resources but abundant building resources. Beyond rooftops, there are also numerous idle exterior walls – another growth pole for "PV+."

Using high-strength structural adhesive, flexible modules can be attached directly to concrete walls, metal curtain walls, or even old ceramic tiles. A wall originally designed only to shelter from wind and rain thus becomes a small-scale power station.

For Xiamen's industrial parks, commercial complexes, and public buildings, this effectively transforms the entire "surface area" of a building into "power generation area" without occupying any additional land. From the fifth facade to building exterior walls, flexible PV is expanding the boundaries of distributed photovoltaics.

Project 1: Curved industrial shed roof

At a steel plant's curved raw material shed, traditional PV was deemed "uninstallable." Xingsheng's flexible modules adopted a "slope-following" solution, conforming to the curved surface like laying a cloth – no penetration, no complex brackets. Every kilowatt-hour of green electricity captured directly offsets the enterprise's carbon emission allowance. This solution can be directly transferred to Xiamen's port warehouses and logistics parks.

Project 2: Aging factory rooftop

Facing the three major challenges of insufficient load-bearing capacity, corroded steel tiles, and high leakage risk, Xingsheng's flexible modules – with their lightweight, penetration-free design and ability to install directly over existing steel tiles – successfully restored "PV freedom" to aging factories. For the numerous existing industrial buildings along the Fujian coast, this is the most universally applicable solution.

The release of Xiamen's 15th Five-Year Plan represents the energy transition of a major southeastern coastal city. Behind the 1.3 GW target is the shift of distributed PV from a "greenfield market" to "brownfield utilization."

For PV enterprises, the era of simply competing on module efficiency is passing. In markets like Xiamen, "ability to install, operate safely, and pass carbon assessments" is more important than "0.5% higher efficiency."

Whoever can help building owners solve the "uninstallable" problem will capture a larger share of Xiamen's 1.3 GW target.

Lightweight flexible modules – with their core capabilities of being light, flexible, and adhesive – enable every idle rooftop and every unused wall to generate green energy value under Xiamen's sunlight.