China installed more solar energy in 2023 than the entire rest of the world had ever built in all previous years combined. That sentence is worth reading twice.
In a single calendar year, China added approximately 217 gigawatts of new solar capacity — surpassing the cumulative total installed by all other nations across the entire history of solar energy up to that point. The scale is almost impossible to process intuitively. It represents over 500 million solar panels installed in 12 months. Entire solar manufacturing supply chains, project development pipelines, and installation workforces have been built and operated at a pace and scale with no precedent in energy history.
The cost consequences are global. China manufactures over 80% of the world's solar panels, and its production scale has driven prices to record lows. The cost of utility-scale solar in China dropped below $0.01 per kilowatt-hour in some provinces in 2023 — cheaper than burning coal to generate the same electricity. These economics are now rippling through every solar market on the planet, accelerating energy transitions in countries that could not previously afford large-scale deployment.
China's solar ambition extends into space. The China National Space Administration is advancing plans for a space-based solar power station that would collect solar energy in orbit — where sunlight is constant and intense — and transmit it to Earth as microwave radiation. If achieved, it would be the most significant energy infrastructure project in human history. China is not just building the largest solar programme on Earth — it is planning one beyond it.
Source: National Energy Administration of China / International Energy Agency, 2024
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