Post #1656114
2026-04-24 14:56 UTC
The Iranian crisis has uncovered some surprising data lurking under the surface of global petro-politics.
China appears to have been running its solar production at half capacity.
Until March this year, China's solar industry, it seems, has had an extra gear in reserve, waiting for the moment it needed a speed boost.
New data from the Chinese GACC via Ember (the Energy Think Tank) tells this story. The data show China's March 2026 solar exports at 68GW -- double February's volume.
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Replies (1)
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@jonshell@mastodon.energy 2026-04-24 14:56
The jump in China's March '26 solar output is roughly equal to all of Spain's installed capacity. That's all of Spain, (an extra ~35GW) every four weeks! We can reasonably assume that solar equipment orders jumped in response to war-related uncertainty in global oil markets. It is interesting to see that there was substantial *latent* demand for solar equipment. There was 35GW of discretionary purchasing that was likely directed away from oil to solar. 🧵 2/4