The details of solar’s expansion are even more surprising
Not every country is riding the solar power rocket to the sun just yet. Individual countries have seen peaks and dips in solar installations based on how well their economies are doing and how strong their policy incentives are, like feed-in tariffs, net metering, and tax credits.
In the past couple of years, the global story has really been about China. Add up every solar panel installed in the US in history and you get how much China installed last year alone, almost 60 percent of all new solar installed in the world. The sheer scale of this deployment broke a lot of forecasters’ models.
That’s the thing. You can’t do it on your own in most places all the time. You have to be connected to the grid anyway for when you can’t sustain your usage. And even if you over sustain your energy needs in a few places around the world, you have to be connected to the grid to send the surplus to the grid by regulations.