i’m actually super surprised australia makes the cut… AND is about 10% of the USA with like 7% of the population… our power grid is fucking disgusting for carbon (although i guess we’re only just above the USA in per capita emissions too so that makes sense i suppose)
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
59 points (98.4% liked)
Technology
37712 readers
313 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I was surprised it was so low! Doesn't Australia have a lot of open sunny area?
Edit: it's not low, they're #1 per capita
China putting china on top of the charts is expected, but it's per capita production that makes more sense for direct comparison of countries.
In that case.. Australia is the leader by a strong margin..
Per capita production makes no sense actually, per capita consumption makes sense, and that's double of that in China in Australia.
Doesn't that table show Australia has double the consumption? also that consumption number is in total primary energy, regardless if the energy comes from solar or not.
I believe that to see how much of the TPES for each country comes from solar we would need to divide the solar production per capita by the total consumption per capita:
- Australia: 1774 kWh / 63257 kWh = 2.80%
- China: 410 kWh / 33267 kWh = 1.23%
Sources: the 2023 numbers from his link, and the 2023 numbers from the source in your wikipedia link.
When it comes to China, you really have to look at latest numbers because how much renewable installations there change year to year. China hit an inflection point in 2023 where fossil fuel usage started to shrink:
China installed more solar in 2023 than the rest of the world combined, with the majority of it coming online in the country’s sparsely populated west and north.
That same year, its renewable capacity grew faster than its overall demand for electricity — meaning its fossil fuel usage actually went backwards.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-18/survey-of-the-worlds-solar-shows-global-boom/104006096
Then, in 2024 China continued to massively expand renewable usage (including solar)
China has achieved another year of remarkable growth in renewable energy, with the addition of 277 GW of solar and 79 GW of wind capacity in 2024. This surge has brought the cumulative solar and wind capacity to a staggering 1,407 GW. China contributed 15% of the world's installed solar capacity in 2024 alone.
China hit new record of solar and wind power capacity additions in 2024 https://climateenergyfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/MONTHLY-CHINA-ENERGY-UPDATE-Feb-2025.pdf
China was at nearly 50% of the world’s solar capacity in 2024 according to IEA https://reglobal.org/snapshot-of-global-pv-markets-2024/
China’s new PV installations forecast to reach up to 255GW in 2025 https://www.pv-tech.org/chinas-new-pv-installations-forecast-to-reach-up-to-255gw-in-2025/
The pace of transition to renewables in China is on a completely different scale from the rest of the world.
Ok, there are no numbers from 2024 yet in the source.
I think the solar capacity in 2023 for China was 525GW.
So a 277 GW increase in solar means it increased by (277 / 525) 52.76% (that's great!)
That same percentage increase over the current value in terms of production would not make it rise past Australia per capita yet, but nobody can deny that's an impressive pace.
Also, considering that the trend in population numbers for China is slowly starting to decrease, that could also contribute to an increase in the per capita numbers in the future.
Yo wtf, Aussie w???
Were looking to supply Asia with power soon. Afaik this is all Northern territory, not eastern seaboard.
I'm just impressed the UK can even be in the top 10.
I reckon we’d be doing even better if it was total renewables, we lean toward wind power more than most, what with being an island and all
That would put you in competition with places like canada, that are 76% renewables though, if you count hydro.
For wind alone (according to wikipedia) you do do better, but are still in 6th place.
You'd also have to count all the oil and gas that Canada exports to be burned around the world. Whether it's used domestically or not doesn't really make a difference.
true, but then you'd have to do the same with every other country that sells oil, which would skew the numbers a bunch
Of course, that's the only proper way to track this.
Data should be per capita or another relative measure.
If you want it Per Capita, try this one with data from 2023.
Pretty different story naturally.
(edited link to include the same countries as the op post)
But still, China is going full power on renewables, eventually they will pull ahead there as well, unless west or others start investing in renewables seriously.
Indeed that paints a different picture as suggested.
Yes, solar per capita, or percentage of solar in total energy production.
US once again beaten by rest of world.
By "solar power in operation" (in GW) i think they mean maximum output capacity rather than actual production, since these numbers add up to 923 GW while wikipedia says in 2024 there was 2.13 petawatt-hours (243 GW on average) actually produced by solar.
