3mo ago

Top countries with the most solar power in operation - Global Times

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202504/1331334.shtml

23 comments

China putting china on top of the charts is expected, but it's per capita production that makes more sense for direct comparison of countries.
In that case.. Australia is the leader by a strong margin..
- Per capita production makes no sense actually, per capita consumption makes sense, and that's double of that in China in Australia.
  
  Doesn't that table show Australia has double the consumption? also that consumption number is in total primary energy, regardless if the energy comes from solar or not.
  I believe that to see how much of the TPES for each country comes from solar we would need to divide the solar production per capita by the total consumption per capita:
  
  - Australia: 1774 kWh / 63257 kWh = 2.80% - China: 410 kWh / 33267 kWh = 1.23%
  Sources: the 2023 numbers from his link, and the 2023 numbers from the source in your wikipedia link.
  
  afghanistan is at the top of the list!!!
- Yo wtf, Aussie w???
  
  Were looking to supply Asia with power soon. Afaik this is all Northern territory, not eastern seaboard.
I'm just impressed the UK can even be in the top 10.
- I reckon we’d be doing even better if it was total renewables, we lean toward wind power more than most, what with being an island and all
  
  That would put you in competition with places like canada, that are 76% renewables though, if you count hydro.
  For wind alone (according to wikipedia) you do do better, but are still in 6th place.
- Data should be per capita or another relative measure.
  
  If you want it Per Capita, try this one with data from 2023.
  Pretty different story naturally.
  (edited link to include the same countries as the op post)
  
  Yes, solar per capita, or percentage of solar in total energy production.
US once again beaten by rest of world.
i’m actually super surprised australia makes the cut… AND is about 10% of the USA with like 7% of the population… our power grid is fucking disgusting for carbon (although i guess we’re only just above the USA in per capita emissions too so that makes sense i suppose)
- I was surprised it was so low! Doesn't Australia have a lot of open sunny area?
  Edit: it's not low, they're #1 per capita
By "solar power in operation" (in GW) i think they mean maximum output capacity rather than actual production, since these numbers add up to 923 GW while wikipedia says in 2024 there was 2.13 petawatt-hours (243 GW on average) actually produced by solar.

23 comments