Solar power in China

China is the largest market in the world for both photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal energy. Its PV capacity crossed 1,000 gigawatts (one terawatt, 1 TW) in May 2025. By June 2025, China's PV capacity surpassed 1,100 gigawatt. In 2024, China added 277 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, which was equivalent to 15% of the world's total cumulative installed solar capacity.

China's photovoltaic industry began by making panels for satellites, and transitioned to the manufacture of domestic panels in the late 1990s. After substantial government incentives were introduced in 2011, China's solar power market grew dramatically: the country became the world's leading installer of photovoltaics in 2013. China surpassed Germany as the world's largest producer of photovoltaic energy in 2015, and became the first country to have over 100 GW of total installed photovoltaic capacity in 2017. As of at least 2024, Chinese firms are the industry leaders in almost all of the key parts of the solar industry supply chain, including polysilicon, silicon wafers, batteries, and photovoltaic modules.

As of at least 2024, China has one third of the world's installed solar panel capacity. Most of China's solar power is generated within its western provinces and is transferred to other regions of the country. In 2011, China owned the largest solar power plant in the world at the time, the Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park, which had a photovoltaic capacity of 200 MW. In 2018, it held the record again with the Tengger Desert Solar Park with its photovoltaic capacity of 1.5 GW. China currently owns the second-largest solar plant in the world, the Huanghe Hydropower Hainan Solar Park, which has a capacity of 2.2 GW. In 2023, China completed the world's largest hydro-solar power plant in Sichuan, which uses the consistency in hydropower production to offset the variability in solar power.

Solar power contributed a small portion of China's total energy use in 2020, accounting for 3.5% of China's total energy capacity. Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 Climate Ambition Summit that China plannned to have 1,200 GW of combined solar and wind energy capacity by 2030. This target was reached in 2024, six years ahead of the 2030 goal. As of at least 2023, solar power is cheaper than coal-fired power in China.

Solar water heating is also extensively implemented, with a total installed capacity of 290 GWth at the end of 2014, representing about 70% of world's total installed solar thermal capacity.

The expansion of the solar sector in China has been criticized due to the large quantities of waste being produced and improperly disposed of from the production of photovoltaic cells. Criticism over large amounts of unused energy being produced has appeared along with criticism over the forced removal of native populations for development land and the usage of forced labor in the production of photovoltaic cells.

Although in some countries there are aesthetic objections to large-scale solar farms, in China they are often perceived as an aesthetic positive due to their associations with modernity and green development.