Ethanol

Solar energy

A solar panel with palm trees in the background

Solar electricity generating capacity has on average doubled every two years since 1998

Solar power generating capacity grew 69% in 2008, the fastest rate of growth in our database which goes back to 1996. Total capacity grew by 5.5 GW to reach 13.4 GW. Growth averaged 42% pa over the past 10 years – at that rate solar capacity doubles every two years.

Growth in 2008 was highly concentrated – Spain (2.7 GW) and Germany (1.5 GW) together accounted for more than 75% of the growth, due to continued strong government support for solar power in those markets.

Chart of IEA PVPS* solar PV generation capacity

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In terms of installed capacity Germany still leads (5.5 GW, 40.9% share of world total), but Spain (3.3 GW, 24.5%) has now overtaken both Japan (2.1 GW, 16.0%), and the US (1.2 GW, 8.7%).

On the supply side, the rapid expansion of polysilicon supply helped ease the shortage of raw material for solar PV production. China and Taiwan continued to expand their PV cell manufacturing aggressively, increasing their share of global cell production.