Top Solar Power Countries (Per Capita, Per GDP, Per TWh of Electricity Produced, & in Total)

11 years ago Zachary Shahan
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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.)

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

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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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