BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
The first terawatt of global solar capacity took nearly 68 years to reach. The second arrived in roughly two years. The third came in 19 months. The world crossed the 3-terawatt mark in early 2026, and the pace is still picking up.
In 2025 alone, the world installed 664 gigawatts of new solar capacity, 12 percent more than the year before. In the first quarter of 2026, solar and battery storage together accounted for 91 percent of all new grid capacity added in the United States. Wind and solar combined generated 22 percent of global electricity in April 2026, passing natural gas at 20 percent for the first time, according to energy research group Ember.
Who’s driving it
The first terawatt was built almost entirely in wealthy nations with subsidies to match. The second and third differed from the first. China now accounts for more than half of all solar installations worldwide, and Chinese manufacturers have driven panel prices down far enough that solar is viable in countries that couldn’t have justified it a decade ago.
Some of the fastest growth is happening in countries with the most urgent energy problems. Pakistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Cuba have all seen large increases in rooftop solar as households buy panels to escape rising fossil fuel costs. The number of countries with at least 1 gigawatt of installed capacity has grown to 74, up from 42 in 2020. Solar now supplies roughly nine percent of the world’s electricity, up from three percent in 2020.
Where the limits are
The pace has exposed infrastructure gaps. In China, solar deployment has outpaced transmission lines and battery storage, leading to curtailment during peak hours when there’s more power than the grid can absorb. China’s latest Five-Year Plan targets more than a 50 percent increase in renewables consumption by 2030, shifting focus from building capacity to using it.
Battery storage is the central question for what comes next. “Without enough energy storage, you cannot maximize solar’s potential,” said Lara Hayim, head of solar research at BloombergNEF. Countries where solar has moved fastest, including Pakistan and the Philippines, are already seeing parallel surges in battery installations. The storage gap is what gets solved next, or solar’s ceiling stays where it is.
BloombergNEF forecasts more than 9 terawatts of installed solar by 2036. That’s three times the current total. Given the last two years, it would be surprising if that estimate held.
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