Photovoltaic panels already cover more than 14,500 square kilometers of the planet’s surface: from the Atacama desert to the mountain ranges of Tibet. This extension, equivalent to the size of Northern Ireland, is the result of analysis by Global Renewables Watch (GRW), which identifies these infrastructures by applying machine learning techniques to satellite images.
In just seven years the world has tripled its installed power, understood as maximum production capacity. According to GRW data, China leads the expansion, followed at a great distance by the United States and India, with Spain as the fourth world power.
The Spanish position and that of other countries in the classification GRW differs from that offered by sources such as the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), where Spain would drop to seventh place. The discrepancies are methodological: IRENA relies on data submitted by each country, with disparate standards; and GRW and Transition Zero, another similar project whose data is also used in this piece, support their estimates of what is seen from space. All figures agree that the escalation of this technology is not concentrated only in the solar giants. Countries like Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam or Poland, with much more modest starting points, are experiencing a rapid take-off: they have multiplied the capacity they had in 2017 by 10 or more.
Obtaining data from satellite images allows for a homogeneous comparison between regions. “We don’t claim that our figures are perfect, but a good advantage over other estimates is that we apply the same methodology to all countries,” explains Juan Lavista, scientific director of Microsoft’s AI for Good lab. Furthermore, these sources offer data on the surface area of the structures.
Kilometers of panels
The rapid growth of global photovoltaic energy is supported by ever-larger installations: according to the International Energy Agency, 57% of new capacity added in 2023 will come from large-scale solar parks. These macro-projects are crucial for giants like China, which has built a solar park with a capacity of 16,900 MW and 420 square kilometers (more than triple the surface area of the city of Valencia) in Qinghai, its least populated region and one of the largest. The following video shows the different stages of its construction over eight years on the Tibetan Plateau.
The construction of large parks is also driving emerging powers, such as India, which aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2070 and is home to plants such as Bhadla, with over 2,000 MW of capacity. Satellite images show how this park was built in the desert of Rajasthan, in the north-west of the country.
The global solar energy map reveals a clear discrepancy between each area’s natural potential and actual photovoltaic development. According to an analysis by the World Bank, which takes into consideration factors such as solar radiation and air temperature, the most favorable country for the generation of photovoltaic energy is Namibia, whose installed power is around 230 MW. On the other hand, Ireland, which has the worst potential, stands at 880 MW.
Nearly 60% of the world’s population lives in countries where each installed kilowatt produces, on average, more than four kilowatts per hour per day. Spain is part of this group, which does not include most of northern Europe. Even powers like Germany rely on a much lower potential: 2.96 kilowatt hours per installed kilowatt.
The deployment in Spain
In the case of Spain, power seems to skyrocket where the sun warms the most. On the Cantabrian coast, where solar potential is more limited, installed capacity is barely growing. But as you move south, the map densifies: Extremadura, Andalusia and Murcia concentrate the greatest potential and host the most extensive macro solar plants in the country.
Spain as a whole has also tripled the weight of photovoltaics: it went from hosting an installed capacity of 8,850 MW at the end of 2017 to 31,375 in mid-2024. Aragon has experienced the greatest expansion of any other community in the last seven years, with an increase of 1,112%. Only in 2023 will it incorporate a quarter of its current capacity.
Extremadura and Andalusia concentrate more than half of the installed power in Spain, with Extremadura’s leadership led by plants such as Núñez de Balboa (500 MW) and Pizarro (590 MW). In the satellite images of its construction you can see its extension (about 13 square kilometers) compared to the small municipality of Torrecillas de la Tiesa.
The following map shows the position of the panels that Transition Zero detects in Spain on the photographs of the territory of the National Aerial Orthophotography Plan. You can enter your address or municipality to see if there are systems installed in your area. In some cases, the yellow perimeters may not correspond to plaques visible on the ground: this is because the orthophotos (aerial images digitally corrected to have the same scale across the entire surface and the geometric precision of a map) may be prior to their construction.
Methodology
The interactive maps show the polygons of TransitionZero’s open Solar Asset Mapper (TZ-SAM) database, updated on November 7, 2025 with the latest result of its quarterly analysis: they collect the location, shape and capacity of all solar assets detected using planetary-scale machine learning techniques.
Although TZ-SAM includes an estimate of the approximate year of construction of each plant, for the evolution by country it was decided to use the Global Renewables Watch (GRW) database, prepared by Microsoft, Planet and The Nature Conservancy. This database shares technical similarities with TZ-SAM, but provides a broader and more homogeneous time series since 2017, making it easier to compare the evolution of solar capacity between countries over time.
The advantage of both analyzes – based on satellite images processed using automatic detection algorithms – is that they allow the application of a consistent methodology on a global scale, independent of the quality, transparency or availability of official data for each country.
Both GRW and TZ-SAM offer their own estimates which may differ from other sources. In its calculations, GRW places Spain as the fourth largest producer in the world, while TZ-SAM places it fifth. In contrast, official statistics compiled by IRENA – based on annual questionnaires filled out by member states – place the country in seventh place.
Another added value of the TZ-SAM and GRW datasets – which are not offered by traditional sources such as IRENA – is the detailed information on the area dedicated to solar collection. The area of photovoltaic panels estimated by Global Renewables Watch (GRW) is used in the comparative graphs by country and autonomous community.
Data on photovoltaic potential comes from the Global Solar Atlas, an online tool developed by the World Bank that provides an overview of solar resources on a global scale. The indicator represented on the map estimates the energy that a typical photovoltaic system is able to generate in the long term.
The maps focused on Spain use as a background orthophotography from the National Aerial Orthophotography Plan (PNOA, CC-BY 4.0, scne.es), integrated with hydrographic information from the National Geographic Institute (IGN). The identification of the municipalities comes from the Basic Gazetteer of Spain (NGBE).
For global scale maps, the map base combines NASA’s Blue Marble series with a modified version of Natural Earth geometry.
