China has surpassed the 3 GW (3,000 MW) milestone for utility-scale solar power production capacity. It’s the first country to do so and is sitting pretty at the top of the utility-scale solar rankings.
Apart from that, keep in mind that Chinese homes and businesses are utilizing rooftop solar-power production systems, as well as solar thermal water heaters to reduce electricity usage by eliminating the need for electric water heaters.
According to project tracker Wiki-Solar, worldwide utility-scale solar added 3.75 GW to electricity production capacity in the first half of 2013, and China contributed more than 1 GW (26%) of that. The world is now close to 15 GW of utility-scale solar power. As the table above shows, the top 5 countries for utility-scale solar (and their capacities) are:
- China (3.137 GW)
- Germany (2.896 GW)
- US (2.895 GW)
- India (1.19 GW)
- Spain (1.151 GW)
