China's domestic demand for solar photovoltaic (PV) energy would reach 500,000 kilowatts this year, said Liu Qi, deputy head of the National Energy Administration (NEA), on Tuesday.

Liu made the remarks at a forum on renewable energy industry cooperation across the Taiwan Strait. The two-day forum will close Wednesday in Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

China plans to expand the solar PV energy market gradually: to about 5 million kilowatts installation capacity in 2015 and 20 million kilowatts in 2020, according to the NEA, China's top energy planner.

Photovoltaic is a method of generating electric power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity by using semiconductors.