China Becomes The First To Hit The 3 GW Utility-Scale Solar Milestone

July 16th, 2013 by Nicholas Brown

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 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)

(3.137 GW) Germany (2.896 GW)

(2.896 GW) US (2.895 GW)

(2.895 GW) India (1.19 GW)

(1.19 GW) Spain (1.151 GW)











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