How many MT of PV panels are there in 2019?

The total PV panel material stocks reached 11 Mt in 2019 (supplementary materials Table S4), including but not limited to 1.8 Mt (16 %) Al as the most significant among the four materials, followed by Si at 87 kt, Cu at 81 kt, and Ag at 6 kt.

Should PV power stations be monitored?

The monitoring of PV power stations would be meaningful for both researchers and government officials. As mentioned above, the last decade has witnessed the widespread of PV power stations in China, where much previous gobi, grassland, water bodies and mountain land have now been covered by newly-built PV power stations (Fig. 1).

How big is PV power in China?

According to statistics, the installed capacity of PV power in China was only 100 MW in 2007, but grew rapidly to 205,000 MW in 2019, with an average growth of 17,075 MW per year.

How much does PV contribute to electricity consumption?

The increasingly large volumes of installed capacity are making a tangible contribution to electricity consumption around the world. The two principal PV markets, China and the Europe Union, demonstrate this with approximately 10% each. In total, PV contribution amounts to over 8% of the electricity demand in the world.

How many ground-mounted PV power stations are there in China?

According to our dataset, China has a total of 2467.7 km 2 ground-mounted PV power stations in 2020. The top three largest provinces refer to Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai, whose PV area ratio are 14.92%, 12.49% and 11.26%, respectively, with a total of nearly 40% of all the PV power stations of China.

How has solar PV capacity changed over the past decade?

During the past decade, the total installed solar PV capacity has increased by two orders of magnitude from about 110 MW in 2010 to 12 GW at the end of 2020. The main drivers for this growth were Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa, which now account for roughly 60% of the total capacity.