BEIJING — China's major power generation enterprises saw a surge of investment in solar power projects in the first seven months of this year, official data showed.

The investment skyrocketed 304 percent from a year ago to 77.3 billion yuan (about $11.4 billion) in the January-July period, said the National Energy Administration.

These companies' investment in power engineering projects totaled 260 billion yuan during the period, up 16.8 percent year-on-year.

Investment in power grid projects increased 10.4 percent year-on-year to 223.9 billion yuan, data showed.

As of the end of July, China's total installed power generation capacity stood at about 2.46 billion kilowatts, rising 8 percent from the previous year, said the administration.