PVCF v1: A High-Resolution, Spatially Consistent Multi-Source Fusion Dataset for Photovoltaic Infrastructure in China

The global energy transition has driven a rapid expansion of clean energy infrastructure, with photovoltaic (PV) systems playing a central role. As the world’s largest producer and installer of PV systems, China has witnessed sustained growth in installed capacity over recent years. Reliable, high-resolution spatial data on PV infrastructure are essential for informing energy policy, optimizing grid integration, assessing land use conflicts, and evaluating ecological impacts. While several publicly available PV datasets for China exist, they vary substantially in time periods, data sources, identification methodologies, and data precision, creating challenges for users who require consistent, high-quality inputs for their analyses. To systematically evaluate and integrate these heterogeneous datasets, this study develops a validation framework incorporating data fusion, DeepLab V3+ validation, and manual annotation. Applying this framework and based on accessible PV dataset, we construct the China’s High-Resolution Photovoltaic Comparison and Fusion (PVCF) dataset, a high-resolution PV vector dataset for China updated to December 2025. The results reveal substantial inconsistencies among the nine source datasets, in which low-confidence regions, defined as areas identified as PV by only a single dataset, constitute the largest proportion and cover a substantial area. Building upon 3,033.82 km2 of high-confidence PV areas from the nine existing datasets, defined as regions identified by more than five sources, the PVCF further incorporates 5,701.94 km2 of manually annotated, refined, or newly identified PV patches, together with 1,627.50 km2 of PV area validated using DeepLab V3+, yielding a total area of 10,363.26 km2. The northwestern provinces collectively accounting for 5,136.82 km2 (49.70%) of the national total, predominantly in the form of large clustered utility scale solar farms, while eastern China is dominated by fragmented and dispersed distributed and rooftop systems. As the most recent high-resolution PV vector dataset for China, PVCF provides a robust data foundation for applications in PV policy planning, biodiversity assessment, and ecological research.