Following up on my three posts last week on Top Wind Power Countries Relative to Electricity Production, Top Wind Power Countries Per Capita, and Top Wind Power Countries Per GDP, this post includes rankings of the top countries in the world for new solar PV power (in 2011) and total installed solar PV power (at the end of 2011) relative to country populations, electricity production, and GDP.

The solar power figures are based off of data from the European Photovoltaic Industry Association’s Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics until 2016 report just published in May. Country population, electricity production, and GDP statistics were retrieved from the same Wikipedia pages used for the wind power posts and rankings (i.e. they are the same numbers).

For 10 more charts (a bit prettier) from the Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics until 2016 report, check out: 10 Interesting Solar Power Graphics. Or, for much more information and depth on solar power in any of these countries, check out the EPIA report.

After the graphics and lists of the rankings, I add a little commentary on some of the leading countries (and one not-leading country).

Before getting to the rankings, I’ll just note that there may be some countries not included here that should be — I’m not aware of any in particular, but if you have 2011 solar installation data for a country that you think should be included and is not, send the data to me and I can update these charts and lists. (Note: I’m only including countries with over 1 MW of total installed solar power.)

Of course, solar is a fast-growing energy sector and there might be some big changes once 2012 numbers are in (e.g. India is sure to jump up a bit in the rankings). I’m already looking forward to doing this for 2012, but, unfortunately, that will have to wait another year or so.

On to the rankings, you say? OK, let’s go!

(Note: to enlarge any of the images, click on the image below, and then click on the image again on the next page and you can then zoom in and out from there.)

• Page 1: Top Solar Countries Per Capita (this page)
• Page 2: Top Solar Countries Relative to Electricity Production
• Page 3: Top Solar Countries Per GDP
• Page 4: Top Solar Countries in Absolute Installation Numbers
• Page 5: Commentary & Country Highlights

Top Solar Power Countries Per Capita

Total/Cumulative Solar Power per Capita (end of 2011):

Country — Total Installed Solar Power per Million People (MW):

1. Germany — 301.470
2. Italy — 214.480
3. Czech Rep. — 186.497
4. Belgium — 184.271
5. Spain — 95.268
6. Slovakia — 85.945
7. Luxembourg — 58.617
8. Greece — 58.493
9. Australia — 56.622
10. France — 40.689
11. Slovenia — 39.372
12. Japan — 38.508
13. Malta — 28.734
14. Switzerland — 27.161
15. Israel — 24.875
16. Austria — 20.821
17. Bulgaria — 18.331
18. Portugal — 17.422
19. Canada — 16.170
20. South Korea — 15.521
21. UK — 14.054
22. USA — 13.973
23. Cyprus — 10.728
24. Netherlands — 6.154
25. Taiwan — 4.388
26. Ukraine — 4.163
27. Denmark — 2.865
28. China — 2.296
29. Sweden — 1.580
30. Ireland — 0.654
31. Hungary — 0.402
32. India — 0.381
33. Mexico — 0.356
34. Brazil — 0.166
35. Romania — 0.158
36. Turkey — 0.080
37. Poland — 0.078

New Solar Power per Capita (2011):

Country — Total New Solar Power per Million People (MW):

1. Italy — 156.126
2. Germany — 91.438
3. Belgium — 88.939
4. Slovakia — 58.950
5. Greece — 39.489
6. Australia — 33.764
7. France — 25.570
8. Malta — 23.945
9. Slovenia — 22.360
10. Israel — 16.499
11. Turkey — 14.945
12. Bulgaria — 13.579
13. Switzerland — 13.203
14. UK — 12.592
15. Canada — 10.454
16. Japan — 10.156
17. Luxembourg — 9.769
18. Ukraine — 4.119
19. Cyprus — 3.576
20. South Korea — 1.894
21. Denmark — 1.791
22. China — 1.633
23. Netherlands — 1.195
24. Ireland — 0.654
25. Czech Rep. — 0.571
26. Taiwan — 0.332
27. Portugal — 0.320
28. Sweden — 0.316
29. Hungary — 0.301
30. India — 0.248
31. USA — 0.169
32. Spain — 0.124
33. Austria — 0.106
34. Romania — 0.105
35. Mexico — 0.089
36. Brazil — 0.026
37. Poland — 0.026

• Page 1: Top Solar Countries Per Capita (this page)
• Page 2: Top Solar Countries Relative to Electricity Production
• Page 3: Top Solar Countries Per GDP
• Page 4: Top Solar Countries in Absolute Installation Numbers
• Page 5: Commentary & Country Highlights

Zachary Shahan (2363 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.