In December 2025, BloombergNEF projected a pullback in global solar installations, with China slowing and the rest of the world growing. Ten months later, China has slowed more than expected. The rest of the world has grown slightly faster.
BloombergNEF now projects 584 GW of solar installations in 2026. That is a 10.8% decline from 655 GW in 2025. In December, it forecast 649 GW. In the first quarter of 2025, it expected 753 GW. That earlier 2026 figure is 29% higher than today’s forecast.
When asked whether there have been any surprises in the solar industry in 2026 – any Pakistan’s for instance – BloombergNEF CleanTech Analyst Jenny Chase said, “Honestly, none so far, a big theme has been no major booms. I don’t think it has anything to do with Chinese politics or pricing.”
BloombergNEF estimates China installed 383 GW in 2025. It now expects 271 GW in 2026, a 29% decline. In the group’s 2025 Q4 projection, China had been forecast for 2026 was 341 GW.
In December, BloombergNEF CleanTech Analyst Jenny Chase said growth in China “cannot continue at its historical breakneck pace.” She now attributes the deeper slowdown to saturation. “We doubt that either batteries or EVs will halt this, they just slow it down a little,” Chase told pv magazine USA.
Last year China deployed 383 GW of solar capacity, of which Chase noted the “breakneck” pace. The nation-state is projected to decline a massive 29% to 271 GW deployed. Through the end of June 2026, China installed about 71.8 GW of PV, down from 212.2 GW in the same period of 2025, a even sharper decline of roughly 66%.
The decline came as part of a shift in policy and a new five year plan taking attention off of capacity, and focusing on energy storage.
Outside of China, non-utility, and batteries
The world has slightly outperformed BloombergNEF’s projections. 2025’s deployment capacity of 272 GW was projected to grow to 308 GW – a 13% pop. Current projections put global capacity at 313 GW deployed, well within the end of 2025’s margin of error.
Growth is coming from markets like India, “chugging along”, the Philippines, Nigeria and Malaysia. Regarding both Nigeria and the Philippines, Chase pointed out that the growth in those markets was almost entirely residential and commercial based.
This aligns with a recent report, shown in the above BloombergNEF chart, that with the pullback in utility scale solar in China – non-utility solar is now the largest sector of global renewable energy investment.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
Comments
Please login to comment
Thursday, November 5, 2026
10:00 am – 11:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, October 29, 2026
11:00 am – 12:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Friday, October 23, 2026
11:00 am – 12:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
You have no items in your basket.
