Mapped: Solar Power by Country in 2021

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.

The world is adopting renewable energy at an unprecedented pace, and solar power is the energy source leading the way.

Despite a 4.5% fall in global energy demand in 2020, renewable energy technologies showed promising progress. While the growth in renewables was strong across the board, solar power led from the front with 127 gigawatts installed in 2020, its largest-ever annual capacity expansion.

The above infographic uses data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to map solar power capacity by country in 2021. This includes both solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power capacity.

The Solar Power Leaderboard

From the Americas to Oceania, countries in virtually every continent (except Antarctica) added more solar to their mix last year. Here’s a snapshot of solar power capacity by country at the beginning of 2021:

Country	Installed capacity, megawatts	Watts* per capita	% of world total
China	254,355	147	35.6%
U.S.	75,572	231	10.6%
Japan	67,000	498	9.4%
Germany	53,783	593	7.5%
India	39,211	32	5.5%
Italy	21,600	345	3.0%
Australia	17,627	637	2.5%
Vietnam	16,504	60	2.3%
South Korea	14,575	217	2.0%
Spain	14,089	186	2.0%
United Kingdom	13,563	200	1.9%
France	11,733	148	1.6%
Netherlands	10,213	396	1.4%
Brazil	7,881	22	1.1%
Turkey	(Read more...)