World photo voltaic additions reached round 690 GW in 2025, in response to the newest report from the Worldwide Vitality Company’s Photovoltaic Energy Methods Programme (IEA-PVPS).
IEA-PVPS’ Tendencies in Photovoltaic Purposes 2026 report reveals final 12 months’s additions represented a 15% enhance on installations throughout 2024.
By the top of final 12 months, cumulative put in photo voltaic capability reached 2.96 TW. The report says this capability may theoretically generate round 3,845 TWh yearly, equal to roughly 12% of worldwide electrical energy consumption.
China put in 415 GW, or 60%, of worldwide installations final 12 months. India ranked second for annual additions, at 54 GW, adopted by the USA (43 GW), Germany (18 GW) and Pakistan (14 GW). Collectively, the European Union added 68 GW.
The report notes that PV deployment continued to broaden geographically, with 36 international locations putting in greater than 1 GW of photo voltaic, three greater than in 2024.
Centralised photo voltaic programs accounted for 410 GW of latest photo voltaic programs final 12 months, led by China (256 GW), India (42 GW), USA (35 GW), Spain (11 GW) and Germany (8.3 GW). The report additionally notes Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s as rising markets which are pushed by centralised programs.
Distributed photo voltaic accounted for 282 GW of latest installations in 2025, a document for the market phase, up from 228 GW in 2024.
China deployed 159 GW of all distributed photo voltaic final 12 months, adopted by Pakistan (14 GW), India (12 GW), Germany (9.2 GW) and Brazil (7.9 GW). The report lists France, Türkiye, Japan and Australia as different international locations the place the distributed market is driving general development.
Final 12 months noticed Australia surpass the Netherlands because the nation with the very best cumulative put in PV capability per inhabitant, with 1,604 W/cap in comparison with 1,584 W/cap. Germany ranks third on this metric, with 1,413 W/cap.
A further eight European international locations – Spain, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland and Belgium – are above 1,000 W/cap. China’s penetration price additionally moved past this threshold, to face at 1,040 W/cap.
Within the report’s ahead, co-managers of IEA-PVPS Job 1, Melodie de l’Epine and Izumi Kaizuka, and IEA-PVPS chair, Daniel Mugnier, wrote that final 12 months’s deployments “continued alongside important industrial imbalance.”
They clarify that module manufacturing stays above annual installations determine, whereas low utilisation charges, persevering with worth strain and weak profitability influence producers all through the worth chain.
Figures from the report state that world manufacturing of photo voltaic modules reached 722 GW final 12 months, a 0.6% lower on 2024. This represents a slowdown on the 61.7% year-on-year development recorded between 2022 and 2023.
China accounted for 79% of worldwide PV module manufacturing final 12 months. The nation’s world share dropped from 86% in 2024 as manufacturing capability expanded in India and the USA.
World PV module manufacturing capability is estimated to have reached 1,531 GW/12 months final 12 months, of which 71% was positioned in China.
de l’Epine, Kaizuka and Mugnier added that the dimensions of photo voltaic deployment is altering the connection between photo voltaic capability, electrical energy programs and electrical energy markets.
“Curtailment, detrimental costs, declining seize costs and grid connection constraints are extra more and more seen in excessive penetration markets,” they stated. “Storage, versatile demand, stronger networks, improved forecasting and acceptable market entry have gotten important to extending the contribution of PV past the hours through which it generates.”
Further figures from the report spotlight the appreciable development in storage deployment. Annual battery vitality storage capability additions throughout Europe, Canada and the US mixed have grown from 2.9 GWh in 2020 to nearly 79 GWh in 2025, representing a greater than 25-fold enhance.
