34 gigawatts of new solar capacity commenced generation in 2016 in developing nations according to the latest Climatescope survey, enough to power every home in Nigeria or Peru.
Released at the BNEF Future of Energy Summit in Shanghai yesterday, the report states total cumulative solar capacity jumped 54% year-on-year and has more than tripled in three years.
Solar represented 19% of all new generating capacity added in the 71 countries covered by Climatescope last year, up from 10.6% in 2015 and 2% in 2011.
However, much of the new solar builds were concentrated in just a couple of countries. It will come as no surprise the nation responsible for the vast majority of new installed solar capacity was China, making up a 27GW of the total. India accounted for 4.2GW.
The plummeting price of solar technology is fuelling uptake says BNEF.
“It’s creating opportunities ranging from multi-million dollar projects that serve the grid, to small-scale installations that enable farmers to boost their yields through better irrigation and to connect to the Internet,” said Ethan Zindler, Head of Americas for BNEF.
Micro-scale solar is also playing an increasingly important role in the lives of people in developing nations. Climatescope states figures from the Global Off-Grid Lighting Alliance (GOGLA), Lighting Global and Berenschot indicate approximately 510,000 small devices such as solar powered lanterns were sold in 2011. By 2016 that figure had skyrocketed to 8 million.
Innovative financing options are enabling many households in emerging markets to gain access to solar. In Africa, more than 1.5 million households now use small home solar systems purchased on mobile-money enabled financing plans, up from 600,000 at the end of 2015.
Climatescope nations installed more solar than wind capacity for the first time in 2016. While solar capacity additions grew from 22GW in 2015 to 34GW in 2016, wind power installs fell by half, from 38GW in 2015 to 19GW in 2016.
The report states the emerging market currently most attractive for clean energy investment is China, followed by Brazil, Jordan, Mexico and India.
While the story for solar is good, overall clean energy took somewhat of a nosedive; with only 16 countries in the survey seeing total investment rise year-on-year. Investment fell in 18 nations and 37 countries saw no clean energy investment last year.
Climatescope nations account for 32.5% of global GDP and 72.4% of the world’s population.
The interactive 2017 Climatescope can be viewed here.
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