664GW of photovoltaic installations! While installations decline in many countries, China's photovoltaic industry dominates globally.

In 2025, global new photovoltaic (PV) installations reached a record 664 GW, pushing the global cumulative operational PV capacity past 3 TW.

These figures come from SolarPower Europe's recent "Global Solar Market Outlook 2026-2030" report. This milestone comes less than two years after the global 2 TW mark was crossed.

SolarPower Europe has consistently emphasized that PV, as a power generation technology, can be deployed quickly and at low cost to meet growing electricity demand and reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel supply chains and prices.

An earlier report by SolarPower Europe this year indicated that, due to the elimination of the need for oil imports from the Middle East during recent conflicts, PV applications in Europe save EU countries more than €110 million (approximately US$127.5 million) per day.

SolarPower Europe's latest report also points out that in 2025, PV power generation is equivalent to 540 billion cubic meters of natural gas, or five years' worth of natural gas transport through the Strait of Hormuz—the strait's closure has severely disrupted the global energy storage system.

Perhaps most impressively, in 2025, PV surpasses natural gas for the first time, leading primary energy growth. As shown in the chart above, solar PV met 27% of new energy demand, surpassing all other renewable energy sources—bioenergy ranked second at 13%—and non-renewable energy sources—natural gas—ranked second at 17%.

"The solar era is firmly established," said Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe. "New solar installations will reach a record high in 2025, continuing to outpace all other energy technologies." China Remains "Far Ahead" of the Global Solar Market The report also points out that China remains "far ahead" of the global solar market, with 382GW of new installations in 2025, approximately 100GW more than all other markets combined.

Behind this continued growth is stagnant or even declining new installations in other markets. The United States ranks second in cumulative operational capacity, but new installations declined by 14% between 2024 and 2025; the SolarPower Europe report describes the US solar industry as being in a "period of adjustment," with US developers having to adapt to an increasingly hostile policy environment under the Trump administration, a stark contrast to the incentive policies of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) during the Biden era.

Meanwhile, Germany, Europe's largest PV market, saw no change in new installations between 2024 and 2025; Brazil, the world's sixth-largest market, experienced a 23% year-on-year decline in new installations. Consequently, China's share of global new installations further increased, rising from 55% in 2024 to 57% in 2025.

This trend is illustrated in the chart above. The report further emphasizes China's dominant position in global PV installations. For example, in 2025, China's new installations exceeded those of India, the second-largest market, by 336 GW. China's installed capacity is also eight times that of the second-largest market, nine times that of the third-largest, and 26 times that of the fifth-largest.

SolarPower Europe points out that while PV installations are relatively highly concentrated in multiple countries, not just China—the top ten markets account for 82% of global installations in 2025—the fact that China accounted for more than half of global new installations last year fully demonstrates its dominant position in PV deployment.

New installations are expected to decline in 2026.

Therefore, changes in China will have a significant impact on the global PV industry. In fact, SolarPower Europe predicts that new installations in 2026 will be lower than in 2025, with a mid-scenario forecast of an 8% year-on-year decline and a low-scenario forecast of a 25% decline.

These forecasts are shown in the figure below. The main reason for the slowdown is the change in China's policy environment. SolarPower Europe expects new installations in China to decline by 24% year-on-year—the first decline in new installations in over 20 years—because the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) has begun to end the vicious price competition in the domestic photovoltaic module market. While this competition has driven a significant increase in installations, it has also caused many of China's leading manufacturers to suffer losses.

While Hemetsberger stated that "the solar era is firmly established," the industry body pointed out that the growth rate of new installations is slowing and is expected to contract in 2026. New installations in 2025 are projected at 664 GW, only a 12% increase compared to 2024; the year-on-year growth rates for the previous two years were 32% and 85%, respectively.

The report also noted that while SolarPower Europe's medium-term scenario projects cumulative installations to more than double to 6.6 TW by 2030, this figure is lower than last year's forecast of 7.1 TW, indicating that maintaining or even restoring previous high growth levels will require considerable effort.

"In an increasing number of markets, deployment is increasingly constrained by system integration challenges, from grid congestion to curtailment and negative electricity price signals," Hemetsberger stated. "We urgently need to invest in grids, battery storage, and other non-fossil flexibility solutions to continuously integrate large-scale renewable energy into the grid." The report offers several policy recommendations to address these challenges, including a call to "accelerate grid investment" and reform the electricity market to "incentivize flexibility and self-consumption." SolarPower Europe's report this year also highlighted Australia, noting the growing trend of simultaneous deployment of residential PV projects with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), a prime example of the synergistic application of these two technologies, crucial for the next phase of the energy transition.

For example, as of April 2026, Australia had approximately 69,000 BESS systems deployed alongside PV projects. SolarPower Europe described this growth rate as "extraordinary," meaning that Australia's distributed energy storage capacity is expected to reach gigawatt-hours within months.

"This acceleration is driven by the Home Battery Cost Reduction Programme (CHBP), broader policy momentum following Labor's re-election in May 2025, and continued declines in system costs," the SolarPower Europe report stated, emphasizing the key role of supportive policies in driving and incentivizing integrated PV-storage deployment.

Australia is also experiencing growth outside of distributed PV. Data from the Clean Energy Regulatory Authority (CER) shows that Australia's installed capacity of large-scale renewable energy projects has reached 32 GW.