1183GW! Total Global PV Installations Reach Record High!

According to the Trends in Photovoltaic Adoption 2023 published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the global solar industry has an installed capacity of more than 1,183GW by the end of 2022, 65% of which was added in the past five years.

Last year, the global PV new installed capacity reached 235.8 GW. IEA PVPS program countries, including the United States, China, Germany, Australia and several other industry-leading countries, accounted for 927.5 GW of global installed capacity.

By the end of 2022, the cumulative installed capacity in other markets that are not part of the IEA PVPS program totals 256 GW. Of these countries, India accounts for one-third of the installed capacity at 79 GW, and Vietnam has about 18.5 GW of installed capacity.

China remains the country with the highest installed capacity, doubling its installed capacity in 2021 and adding an unprecedented 105.5GWdc in 2022, with a balanced contribution from centralized and distributed systems. As of last year, China's installed capacity totaled 414GW, accounting for 45% of global installed capacity.

As of the end of last year, the second-largest solar PV market, the United States, had a cumulative installed capacity of 141.6 GW. However, due to increased emphasis on the combined impact of new domestic manufacturing investments and projects to be connected to the grid, the United States will add only 21.1 GW of new capacity in 2022. installed capacity in the U.S. electric power sector declines to 12.5 GW in 2022, from 17 GW, but installed capacity in the residential market increases compared to 2021 has increased.

India came in third with 18.1GW of installed capacity, up from 13GW the previous year, for a cumulative total of 79.1GW. brazil installed 9.9GW of solar capacity last year, increasing the total to 23.6GW. spain added 8.5GW in 2022, bringing the cumulative total to 29.9GW.

The study also looked at Europe as a whole. In addition to Spain, Germany (7.2GW), Poland (4.9GW) and the Netherlands (3.9GW) are the main markets in Europe.

Concentrated and Distributed Solar PV Capacity

The study also investigated centralized and distributed solar PV capacity. Last year, China installed 54.44GW of centralized solar PV capacity, followed by India (13.95GW), the US (12.5GW), Spain (5.45GW) and Japan (3.76GW).

China's cumulative installed concentrated solar PV capacity reached 254.38 GW. The United States ranked second, but with a much lower installed total of 89.83 GW, followed by India (66.85 GW), Japan (33.88 GW) and Spain (23.68 GW).

China's dominance also extends to distributed solar. Last year, China added 51.11GW of distributed solar PV, bringing its cumulative installed distributed PV capacity to 159.33GW by the end of last year. the U.S. came in second, adding just 8.63GW, followed by Brazil (7.33GW), Germany (4.27GW) and India (4.19GW).

Among other countries, Germany (53.56GW) is the second-largest market for cumulative installed distributed PV capacity in 2022 after China, followed by the US (51.63GW), Japan (51.01GW) and Australia (19.59GW).