Socio-spatial inequalities in industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaic deployment in China: Drivers and policy implications

In recent years, distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems have expanded rapidly worldwide to support the energy transition and climate goals. Existing studies mainly focus on the spatiotemporal distribution of residential PV systems and their driving factors. However, industrial and commercial distributed PV (IC-DPV) dominates the distributed PV market in China, and its investment entities, project scale, and spatial dependencies differ substantially from those of residential PV. To address this gap, this study characterized the spatial distribution of IC-DPV deployment across Chinese cities and examined the relationship between socioeconomic and built environment factors and its deployment based on spatial econometric models and newly compiled project-level PV installed capacity data. The results show that IC-DPV deployment in China exhibits pronounced socio-spatial inequality. Eight key factors were found to be significantly associated with IC-DPV deployment. These drivers differ from those reported in previous studies on residential PV, suggesting potential differences in the underlying patterns of IC-DPV and residential PV deployment related to market demand, resource investment, policy environment, and built environment conditions. This study provides valuable insights for improving the understanding of distributed PV development patterns in China and for promoting a more coordinated regional transition toward solar energy. © 2026 The Author(s).