China makes roughly four of every five solar panels sold in the world. This tool follows where its panel exports landed from 2017 through 2026, for the biggest markets and for each of our 24 case-study countries. It lines each swing up against four kinds of drivers: Beijing's own policy, trade barriers, global shocks, and domestic policy and demand in the buying country. Pick a year, pick a country, and ask what moved the flow.
Ribbon width is the capacity of panels shipped that year, in gigawatts (GW). One GW is 1,000 megawatts (MW), roughly a large power plant. Major markets shows where most panels go. Class countries shows our 24 case-study countries; many are measured in megawatts, so read the labels. In GW mode the scale stays the same every year; in Share % mode each year fills the same height. 2026 is a projection (see the notes). Click a ribbon to open that country below.
Source: Ember analysis of Chinese customs data. "First destination" means where the ship first unloads: Rotterdam counts as the Netherlands even when panels end up in Germany.
The solid line is panels from China. The dashed grey line, where it appears, is cells and wafers: parts that a factory in the buying country assembles into panels (tracked from 2022). The strip underneath is the panel price. Markers along the top are dated events; click one, or a card, to read it. Click anywhere on the chart to jump to that year.
Each panel has its own vertical scale, so shapes are comparable but heights are not. Look for steady growth, a spike then a collapse, lumpy one-project years, and flows that switch from panels to cells. The toggle in Exhibit 1 decides which set appears here.
For each swing, pick the driver you think mattered most, then check. Several have more than one cause; the explanation says which one did the most work. "Show me" sets the charts above to the right country and year.
Q1: Beijing said on January 9 it would end the 9% export VAT rebate on April 1. Then the war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and fuel prices jumped. In March, China shipped 66 GW of solar products (panels, cells and wafers), more than twice a normal month.
April–August: panel exports fell back to about 16 GW a month. January–August panels totaled 150 GW, down 10% from the same months of 2025.
The shift to watch: in January–August 2026 China shipped more cells and wafers (154 GW) than finished panels (150 GW). Africa took 39 GW of solar products in those eight months, nearly three times as much as a year earlier, much of it as cells for new factories in Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria. Panel-only data understates China's role more every year.
Every figure from 2017 to August 2026 comes from Ember's China solar exports dataset, which converts Chinese customs records (export value by destination) into capacity using a monthly panel price. Ember's price series is the one drawn in the price strip.
Sources: Ember, China solar exports data (downloaded October 13, 2026) · Ember, March 2026 record · InfoLink, July 2026 · InfoLink, June 2026 · Mercom, VAT rebate