How Much Solar Manufacturing Exists Globally Ex- China? It’s More Than You Think.

This map includes existing solar manufacturing capacity over 50MW and expansion announcements made since October 2021. It summarizes the best information we have been able to assemble and is a living document. We welcome additional information.

To meet the growing interest in solar manufacturing outside of China, we have developed this map of existing solar manufacturing capacity and planned expansions from a variety of sources. It presents information by supply chain component. We provide the location, capacity, and timeline for solar manufacturing and expansions to the extent the information is available. Absent location specific data we locate the planned expansion in the center of the relevant country. We have attempted to include only credible expansion announcements, but cannot vouch for the probability of particular facilities being built and operated. To better view capacities and expansions for a particular component such as wafers, you can unclick the button for other components, to better see the component of interest. You can also scroll to the left or right on the map to get a global view of the announcements.

This map of existing and expanding solar manufacturing represents our best effort to assemble data from a variety of sources. It will be updated regularly. We thank Kelly Pickerel at Solar Power World for her input and encourage you to utilize SPW's database of U.S.-based PV module manufacturers as well. We also thank Solar Power Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council for providing data on EU solar manufacturing. We welcome any suggested corrections or additional information at info@ultralowcarbonsolar.org.

Growing concerns about sustainability and supply challenges in solar manufacturing, ongoing trade restrictions and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act has clean energy buyers searching for more reliable and sustainable PV module sources. Fortunately, there is more solar manufacturing capacity outside of the highly concentrated Chinese supply chain than many people realize, and it is growing rapidly. We hope this data source will be valuable to the solar sector.