China, US top 3 GW of utility-scale solar, Germany is close

Sep 3, 2013 - China and the US have now surpassed 3,000 MWp of cumulative solar capacity from utility-scale parks, while Germany hit 2,950 GWp at the end of August 2013, Wiki-Solar said Monday in a market report.

The market research provider defines utility-scale as solar projects above 10 MWp each. It noted that it might in the future change the definition to projects above 5 MWp. If that happens, the US, China and Germany will be the only three countries in the 3,000 MWp-4,000 MWp range, Wiki-Solar noted.

In the first eight months of 2013 the US installed 1,488 MWp of utility-scale solar parks thus reaching 3,051 MWp of cumulative utility-scale solar capacity. China added 1,416 MWp, bringing the total to 3,776 MWp. In Germany, however, utility-scale solar installations for January-August 2013 were only 129 MWp after the government terminated the preferential tariffs for solar projects of more than 10 MWp.

Wiki-Solar pointed out that according to an earlier detailed study, the average solar system size in the US is greater than in any other country.

India and Spain were the other two countries in Wiki-Solar’s top five ranking in terms of utility-scale solar capacity. India installed 765 MWp in the first eight months of this year reaching 1,420 MWp in total. For Spain new installations stood at only 11 MWp, while cumulative capacity was 1,146 MWp.

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