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The 10 Countries With the Most Solar Power. One of Them Has Half of It. |
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The International Renewable Energy Agency’s July statistics count 2,397 gigawatts of solar power on Earth at the end of 2025. China has 1,202 of them. That is half the planet’s solar capacity in one country. In 2025 alone, China installed 315 gigawatts. America’s entire solar fleet is 211. |
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Source: IRENA, Renewable Energy Statistics 2026 (July 2026), via Our World in Data. Installed solar capacity, end of 2025, gigawatts. |
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Germany used to own this list. In 2010 it had 18 gigawatts of solar, 43% of everything installed worldwide. China had one. China took the lead in 2015 with 44 gigawatts, 19% of the world total. It now has nearly 28 times that. Brazil is the quiet climber. It had 0.05 gigawatts of solar in 2015. It now has 65, about 1,300 times as much, and sits sixth, ahead of Spain, Australia and Italy. Nearly nine-tenths of it went up after 2020. Pakistan is the hole in the chart. Official statistics give it 3.7 gigawatts, the same figure as a year earlier. Ember, the energy think tank, counted 16.6 gigawatts of Chinese panels shipped to Pakistan in 2024 alone. Most went onto rooftops that official statistics do not yet capture. The real list may have a country missing from it. |
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China builds at a scale nobody else touches. It installed 315 gigawatts in 2025, two and a half times what the other nine countries on this chart added between them. That is six of every ten gigawatts of new solar on Earth. The United States, a distant second, added 34. India is the one to watch below it. It added a record 37.9 gigawatts in 2025 and passed Germany and Japan in 2024 to take third. Japan was third as recently as 2023. Last year it added 2.6. Sunshine does not decide this ranking. Germany, under grey skies, has 107 gigawatts. Saudi Arabia has 12. All of Africa, home to more than 1.5 billion people, has 22. The United Kingdom has 22. Money and grids decide it. |
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315 GW Solar China installed in 2025 alone, per its National Energy Administration. America’s entire solar fleet, built over decades, is 211. |
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50% China’s share of the world’s installed solar capacity at the end of 2025. In 2015 it was 19%. In 2010 it was 2%. |
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6 in 10 China’s share of all new solar added worldwide in 2025: 315 of roughly 511 gigawatts. |
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1,300× Growth in Brazil’s solar capacity since 2015, from 0.05 gigawatts to 65. It is now sixth in the world. |
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16.6 GW Chinese solar panels shipped to Pakistan in 2024, by Ember’s count. Pakistan’s official total solar capacity: 3.7 gigawatts. |
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China’s solar fleet passed its coal fleet for the first time at the end of July: 1,286 gigawatts against 1,285, says the National Energy Administration. The pace is slowing. China installed 97 gigawatts from January to August, and its solar industry association expects 180 to 240 for the year, down from 315. In America, new projects that missed the July 2026 construction deadline must be running by the end of 2027 to keep federal tax credits. IRENA’s next count lands in spring 2027. We’ll be watching. |
