Solar power by country

Top-left: solar panels on the BedZED development in the London Borough of Sutton. Bottom-left: residential rooftop solar PV in Wetherby, Leeds. Right: the CIS Tower was clad in building-integrated PV and connected to the grid in 2005.

Worldwide electric capacity of solar power by technology. Total of 142 GW in 2013.

Many industrialized nations have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources while an increasing number of less developed nations have turned to solar to reduce dependence on expensive imported fuels. Long distance transmission allows remote renewable energy resources to displace fossil fuel consumption. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:

Worldwide growth of photovoltaics is extremely dynamic and varies strongly by country. By the end of 2014, cumulative photovoltaic capacity increased by more than 40 gigawatt (GW) and reached at least 178 GW, sufficient to supply 1 percent of the world's total electricity consumption of currently 18,400 TWh. As in the year before, the top installers of 2014 were China, followed by Japan and the United States, while the United Kingdom emerged as new European leader ahead of Germany and France. Germany remains for one more year the world's largest producer of solar power with an overall installed capacity of 38.2 GW. The newcomers of the year were Chile and South Africa, which entered straight into the world's Top 10 ranking of added capacity. There are now 20 countries around the world with a cumulative PV capacity of more than one gigawatt. Thailand, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, all crossed the one gigawatt-mark in 2014. The available solar PV capacity in Italy, Germany and Greece is now sufficient to supply between 7% and 8% of their respective domestic electricity consumption.

After an almost two decade long hiatus, deployment of CSP resumed in 2007, with significant growth only in the most recent years. However, the design for several new projects is being changed to cheaper photovoltaics. Most operational CSP stations are located in Spain and the United States, while large solar farms using photovoltaics are being constructed in an expanding list of geographic regions.

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Wikipedia