Solar PV capacity by country
Solar PV capacity by country (MW). Share of total electricity consumption
On this webpage, you can find the rating of top solar photovoltaic generating countries, get to know the volume of solar PV capacity installed in each individual nation annually, and find the solar PV percentage of total electricity consumption by country and globally. The capacity installed is measured in megawatts.
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | Share of total consumption | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Added | Total | Added | Total | Added | Total | Added | Total | |
| China | 15,150 | 43,530 | 34,540 | 78,070 | 53,000 | 131,000 | 45,000 | 175,018 | 3.3% (2018) |
| European Union | 7,230 | 94,570 | 101,433 | 107,150 | 8,300 | 115,234 | 4.3% (2018) | ||
| USA | 7,300 | 25,620 | 14,730 | 40,300 | 10,600 | 51,000 | 10,600 | 62,200 | 2.3% (2018) |
| Japan | 11,000 | 34,410 | 8,600 | 42,750 | 7,000 | 49,000 | 6,500 | 55,500 | 6.8% (2018) |
| Germany | 1,450 | 39,700 | 1,520 | 41,220 | 1,800 | 42,000 | 3,000 | 45,930 | 7.9% (2018) |
| India | 2,000 | 5,050 | 3,970 | 9,010 | 9,100 | 18,300 | 10,800 | 26,869 | 5.4% (2018) |
| Italy | 300 | 18,920 | 373 | 19,279 | 409 | 19,700 | 20,120 | 7.3% (2018) | |
| United Kingdom | 3,510 | 8,780 | 1,970 | 11,630 | 900 | 12,700 | 13,108 | 3.9% (2018) | |
| Australia | 935 | 5,070 | 839 | 5,900 | 1,250 | 7,200 | 3,800 | 11,300 | 6.3% (2018) |
| France | 879 | 6,580 | 559 | 7,130 | 875 | 8,000 | 9,483 | 2.2% (2018) | |
| South Korea | 1,010 | 3,430 | 850 | 4,350 | 1,200 | 5,600 | 2,000 | 7,862 | 2.2% (2018) |
| Turkey | 584 | 832 | 2,600 | 3,400 | 1,600 | 5,063 | 3.2% (2018) | ||
| Spain | 56 | 5,400 | 55 | 5,490 | 147 | 5,600 | 4,744 | 2.7% (2018) | |
| Netherlands | 450 | 1,570 | 525 | 2,100 | 853 | 2,900 | 1,300 | 4,150 | 3.6% (2018) |
| Belgium | 95 | 3,250 | 170 | 3,422 | 284 | 3,800 | 4,026 | 4.7% (2018) | |
| Mexico | 150 | 320 | 150 | 539 | 2,700 | 3,200 | 2.6% (2018) | ||
| Canada | 600 | 2,500 | 200 | 2,715 | 212 | 2,900 | 3,113 | 0.6% (2018) | |
| Thailand | 121 | 1,420 | 726 | 2,150 | 251 | 2,700 | 2,720 | 2.3% (2018) | |
| Greece | 10 | 2,613 | 2,652 | 7.5% (2018) | |||||
| Taiwan | 400 | 1,010 | 2,618 | ||||||
| South Africa | 200 | 1,120 | 536 | 1,450 | 13 | 1,800 | 2,559 | 1.4% (2018) | |
| Brazil | 900 | 1,100 | 2,296 | ||||||
| Switzerland | 300 | 1,360 | 250 | 1,640 | 260 | 1,900 | 346 | 2,246 | 3.6% (2018) |
| Chile | 446 | 848 | 746 | 1,610 | 668 | 1,800 | 2,137 | 7.1% (2018) | |
| Czech Republic | 16 | 2,083 | 48 | 2,131 | 63 | 2,193 | 2,078 | 3.5% (2018) | |
| Ukraine | 21 | 432 | 99 | 531 | 211 | 742 | 1,200 | 2,003 | <1% (2017) |
| Pakistan | 600 | 1,000 | 1,568 | ||||||
| Austria | 150 | 937 | 154 | 1,077 | 153 | 1,250 | 1,431 | 2.0% (2018) | |
| Romania | 102 | 1,325 | 1,377 | 2.8% (2018) | |||||
| Israel | 200 | 881 | 130 | 910 | 60 | 1,100 | 1,070 | 4.5% (2018) | |
| Bulgaria | 1 | 1,029 | 1,028 | 1,036 | 0 | 1,036 | 3.8% (2018) | ||
| Denmark | 183 | 789 | 70 | 900 | 60 | 910 | 998 | 2.9% (2018) | |
| Philippines | 122 | 155 | 756 | 900 | 886 | ||||
| Portugal | 58 | 513 | 57 | 577 | 670 | 2.2% (2018) | |||
| Hungary | 60 | 138 | 665 | ||||||
| Russia | 55 | 62 | 15 | 77 | 159 | 236 | 310 | 546 | |
| Slovakia | 1 | 591 | 531 | 2.1% (2018) | |||||
| Honduras | 391 | 391 | 414 | 451 | 516 | 14.0% (2018) | |||
| Poland | 57 | 87 | 487 | ||||||
| Malaysia | 63 | 231 | 54 | 286 | 50 | 386 | 438 | 0.8% (2018) | |
| Sweden | 51 | 130 | 60 | 175 | 93 | 303 | 421 | 0.4% (2018) | |
| Iran | 51 | 130 | 60 | 175 | 93 | 303 | 354 | 0.4% (2018) | |
| Singapore | 257 | 0.8% (2018) | |||||||
| Luxembourg | 15 | 125 | 122 | 127 | 134 | ||||
| Finland | 5 | 20 | 17.4 | 37.4 | 23 | 80.4 | 53.1 | 133.5 | 0.2% (2018) |
| Malta | 19 | 73 | 20 | 93 | 19 | 112 | 127 | 6.5% (2017) | |
| Cyprus | 5 | 70 | 14 | 84 | 21 | 105 | 113 | 3.3% (2016) | |
| Lithuania | 0 | 69 | 1 | 70 | 4 | 74 | 10 | 84 | |
| Croatia | 15 | 48 | 8 | 56 | 4 | 60 | 1 | 61 | |
| Norway | 2 | 15 | 11 | 26.7 | 18 | 45 | 23 | 68 | 0.0% (2018) |
| Total | 59,000 | 256,000 | 76,800 | 306,500 | 95,000 | 401,500 | 510,000 | 2.55% (2017) | |
During the latest three decades, solar PV has been growing enormously fast. The PV systems have been developing from the first small-scale installations to huge gigawatt-scale solar farms covering dozens of square kilometers of land.
Nowadays, when the global strive toward clean energy generation is especially strong, nearly every nation in the world has photovoltaic power generating stations. The capacity installed in each individual country listed ranges from a few dozens to dozens of thousands of megawatts.
Starting from 2015, China has been ranking first in the race permanently. Its cumulative installed solar PV capacity is close to that of USA and all the countries of European Union taken together. In other words, it accounts for almost one third of the cumulative PV capacity installed globally.
As for the PV portion of the total power consumption, victory belongs to Germany, even though it is far from being the sunniest places on earth.
