​Rooftop installations account for 40% of global solar capacity, new industry data reveals

Global solar capacity has reached a record 2 terawatts (TW) of capacity, or around 25 times the installed electricity capacity of Pakistan, with more added in the last two years than the previous 68 combined, exclusive data from the sector's global industry group shared with Reuters showed.

The updated figures have not previously been published, and the Global Solar Council said they give the fullest picture yet because they include small, rooftop installations often left out of official government data.

After the 2 TW milestone was breached this quarter, global solar capacity has become enough to power around 92 million U.S. households, the council said.

"Governments often don't have the full picture in terms of solar because they're often missing a lot of the small rooftop projects because they just never get registered anywhere in a lot of countries," Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council, told Reuters in an interview.

The challenge now, she said, was to achieve 8 TW of installed solar power in total by 2030, which the data suggests is possible and would amount to more than half of the 11 TW of renewable capacity needed to achieve a U.N. goal set at climate talks in Dubai last year.

Good news for COP29

To raise financing to help hit the goal, the council will launch an International Solar Finance group at the next round of U.N. talks beginning on Nov. 11 in Baku.

A view shows a sign of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference with a backdrop of the cityscape in Baku, Azerbaijan October 31, 2024.Reuters

The council wants to connect funds, multilateral banks, private finance and international institutions to drive down the cost of capital in emerging and developing economies to 5% from 15%.

To calculate the latest data, the council, with European industry group SolarPower Europe, gathered deployment data from national solar associations and solar developers globally.

Some 60% of the 2 TW deployed comes from ground-mounted solar farms, while rooftop solar projects make up 40% of the total, the data showed.