China’s exports of solar panels to the global-south have doubled in the past two years, overtaking global-north sales for the first time since 2018, according to data collated in the Ember export explorer.
Global-south imports of Chinese solar panels more than doubled from 60 gigawatts (GW) in 2022 to 126GW in 2024. That surpassed global-north imports, which were only 12% more in 2024 than in 2022.
Biggest importers of chinese solar panels
European nation the Netherlands was the biggest importer in 2024 and has been every year since 2019, as a result of Rotterdam serving as an import hub for much of continental Europe.
The following four importers were all global south countries:
- Brazil was in second place again, importing more than 20GW for the second year in a row.
- Pakistan and Saudi Arabia jumped to third and fourth, respectively. These two very different solar giants, jumped from the 12th and 26th biggest importers, respectively, in 2022 into the top five.
- India was in fifth place in 2024. Imports remained similar to those in 2023, but installations rose to a record high. In January 2025 India hit 100GW of solar installed.
- Other large global-south markets for Chinese solar include the UAE and Oman in the Middle East, Thailand and the Philippines in south-east Asia and then South Africa, Chile, Uzbekistan and Mexico.
- There were 15 further countries that saw a large uptick in imports of Chinese solar panels towards the end of 2024. There were large increases in Nigeria, Algeria and Iraq. In addition, a cluster of small African and Latin American countries were buying more Chinese solar panels, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana and Nicaragua.
China installs more SOLAR AT HOME than IT exports
China has not just been exporting growing numbers of solar panels. In 2024, it installed more solar panels than it exported for the second year running, according to Ember analysis. China installed 333GW of solar capacity domestically in 2024, some 38% more than the 242GW of solar panels that it exported.
In contrast to China’s installing 333GW of solar capacity domestically in 2024 alone, US solar manufacturing capacity rose from 7GW in 2020 to 50GW in early 2025, with plans announced for a further 56GW.
Source: Carbon Brief, March 31, 2025. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-saudi-arabias…/
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