China Leads With Solar Panels

China is the world s largest market for both photovoltaics and solar thermal energy since 2013 china has been the world s leading installer of solar photovoltaics pv.

China leads with solar panels.

China is home to many sizeable solar farms including the huge 850 megawatt longyangxia dam facility on the tibetan plateau with its four million panels. And the largest solar plant in the. Wood mackenzie estimates from market intelligence business wood mackenzie sees china s photovoltaic panel installations hit a cumulative total of 370 gwdc by 2024 more than double the us s. They also contain lead cadmium and other toxic even carcinogenic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel.

They distribute their solar products and sell its solutions and services to a diversified international utility commercial and residential base in china. In 2015 china became the world s largest producer of photovoltaic power narrowly surpassing germany. Solar panels generate 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants. The report points out that china has taken a lead in renewable energy and is now the world s largest producer exporter and installer of solar panels wind turbines batteries and electric vehicles.

In the space of 25 years china will have gone from having virtually no solar panels to leading the world by a margin of more than 100. In 2017 china was the first country to pass 100 gw of cumulative installed pv capacity and by the end of 2018 it had 174. Ball is the lead author of a recent report that details china s success as an innovator in the solar panel industry. Lofty ambitions but as ball points out the revolution has not been without.

Between 2008 and 2013 china s fledgling solar electric panel industry dropped world prices by 80 percent a stunning achievement in a fiercely competitive high tech market. Worse rainwater can wash many of these toxics out of the fragments of solar modules over time.