The Best Solar Power Countries in the World Will Shock You

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Last Updated on: 16th May 2025, 01:56 pm

I just wrote an article about how much China dominates the world solar PV market. Though, looking through the Snapshot of Global PV Markets report from the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Program (IEA PVPS), a few other charts stood out to me at least as much as the ones showing China’s dominance — and China’s not even close to the top of those.

I’m always keen to see who is leading a market in relative terms, not just absolute terms, and the IEA PVSP provided that as well.

In terms of cumulatively installed solar power capacity in 2024, the best solar PV market in the world was the Netherlands, with Australia and Germany getting silver and bronze. The Netherlands doesn’t often get mentioned as a solar power leader, but on a per capita basis, it’s actually the world leader! Perhaps it deserves more love.

Australia and Germany have gotten more attention for their rooftop solar PV leadership in different eras of the solar PV revolution. Again, though, they deserve more credit for still being world leaders (well, #2 and #3) in terms of the amount of solar PV power they have installed per person.

But that’s just capacity. There’s also the matter of actual electricity generation. Of course, sunnier countries are going to get a boost here. The Netherlands and Germany are not exactly the sunniest countries on the planet.

Looking at the share of countries’ electricity generation, Greece leads the world, with nearly 28% of its electricity now coming from solar power! The Netherlands did still get on the podium, with a silver medal placement here (if they gave out medals for this). And then there’s Spain with the bronze (or the imaginary bronze). Australia and Germany also get into the top 10, but then there are less well known solar leaders like Hungary, Chile, Estonia, Cyprus, and Israel.

Somewhat shockingly to me but somewhat not, Poland is in 13th place! I moved to Poland (for a girl) in 2008 and lived there for 11 years. The country had a huge and powerful coal industry that dominated the electricity sector for years, and even strongly influenced EU policy. However, with an eye toward energy independence, it passed strong solar PV legislation that led to a groundswell of rooftop solar installations in recent years. Still, to see that it has risen to 13th worldwide for per capita solar power is impressive.

Naturally, despite dominating the headlines for total solar power volumes, China is not in the top 13, and neither is the US or India. Perhaps we give the volume leaders a little too much love and attention at times?