Solar Panels – What Country Uses the Most?

What country uses the most solar panels? Possibly the U.S. Consider the wide expanses of hot, sunny desert. Even where there is no desert, the United States offers thousands of square miles of relatively sunny climate. But no. It is not the U.S.

Well, what country uses the most solar panels? It could be a country in Africa, a continent that is blessed with sunshine throughout the year. Africa has many remote villages that cannot be reached with power lines, so perhaps an African country can claim the title to most solar panels. But no. It is not one of the countries on the African continent.

Solar Panels Make Headlines

What country uses the most solar panels? One would think it would be apparent from media headlines.

1. South Korea: Recently broke ground for the world’s biggest solar power plant. The solar plant, near South Korea’s southwestern tip, is to be completed by late 2008. In it, 109,000 solar panels will cover a seaside plot the size of 80 football fields.

2. China: In time for the 2008 Summer Olympics, approximately 1,100 solar panels are being installed over the curved roof of Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium. China has almost as many solar panel manufacturers as the rest of the world put together, but they aren’t using the panels much yet.

3. Spain: As of 2007, solar panels became compulsory on all new and renovated buildings in Spain. New non-residential buildings, such as shopping centers and hospitals, must use solar panels to generate a percentage of their electricity.

4. Portugal: In one of Europe’s sunniest locations, Portugal has built a large solar power plant. The 11-megawatt plant has 52,000 solar panels.

The list goes on. Many countries are beginning or increasing their use of solar panels. Some give residents rebates or incentives for installing solar panels on their roofs. Some have goals to have solar panels on a stated number of roofs by a certain date. Other countries are creating enormous solar power plants and solar panel farms.

The Winner

But what country uses the most solar panels?

Gloomy-skied Germany seems to hold the record at the time this article was written. Cloudier by far than many other countries, Germany has nevertheless become the global leader in electricity generated through solar panels. It produces about half of the world’s total solar electricity.

Germany adopted a law in 2000 that requires the country’s immense power companies to subsidize new solar companies by buying electricity from them at marked-up rates. In 2002, Germans installed more than 10,000 solar panel systems. In 2003, they installed some 20,000 solar panel systems, almost twice the number installed the previous year. This growth continued in 2004. In 2005, Germany was the fastest growing major solar panel market in the world.

As of May 2007, 15 of the 20 biggest solar panel plants in the world are in Germany, even though Germany has only half as many sunny days as countries such as Portugal. The German government decided to phase out all of its nuclear power plants by 2020.