It wasn’t that long ago that China’s main association with solar panels was in a manufacturing capacity, but today they are the world leaders in solar photovoltaic capacity. As of 2016, China’s aggressive installation of solar panels throughout the country has increased their total capacity to 43,000 MW, which is more than the worldwide total capacity in 2010.
Although China does have the title for the largest solar PV capacity, they are trailing in solar panel installations per capita. As china has an impressive population of over 1.357 billion people, the number of panels per person stands at only 0.16, and they do not even feature in the top 20. Although Germany has losts is crown for the biggest solar capacity, they can still be proud to boast an impressive 1.97 solar panels per person, which is almost double their next closest competitor, Italy.
The exponential growth of China’s solar photovoltaic capacity will continue to rise over the next few years, with ambitious and aggressive plans to increase their solar panel capacity to 100,000 MW by 2018. By today’s standards, 100,000 MW would represent half of all the solar panels installed around the globe. This would be an impressive feat for a country that only had a solar PV capacity of 2,500 MW in 2011.
As you might expect, China also has the world’s solar panel farm. Located in the desert, Longyangxia Dam Solar Park has an impressive 850 MW capacity, which is more than Austria’s total capacity. The impressive solar farm only took 9 months to construct and was completed in December 2013.
Renewable technologies are looking very bright in China, and in particular they plan to lead the world in solar photovoltaic installation and manufacturing for many years to come. With more than 50% of the world’s total solar panels manufactured and 21.5% of the world’s total solar PV capacity in China, they are certainly the new kings of photovoltaics.