OVERVIEW - European cos rise back up list of top utility-scale solar developers

First Solar-powered PV park in California. Author: U.S. Department of the Interior.

The emergence of unsubsidised projects is helping European companies to rise back up the list of the world’s top utility-scale solar project developers, according to the latest data by Wiki-Solar.org.

The developers with more than 1 GW alternating current (AC) of cumulative installed volume are listed in the following table.

Rank	Project developer	Capacity to date (MW)	Change since end-2018 (MW)
1	First Solar (US)	5,174	1,205
2	Canadian Solar (CA)	4,118	259
3	NextEra Energy (US)	3,408	1,216
4	SunEdison (US)	3,123	257
5	Enel Green Power (IT)	3,092	603
6	State Power Investment Corp (CN)	3,025	221
7	ACME Solar (IN)	2,806	730
8	Adani (IN)	2,790	361
9	Engie (FR)	2,167	906
10	Azure Power (IN)	1,786	795
11	Tata Power (IN)	1,733	549
12	Shunfeng (CN)	1,532
13	Cypress Creek (US)	1,503	209
14	Juwi (DE)	1,463	545
15	Trina Solar (CN)	1,357	840
16	China Three Gorges New Energy (CN)	1,281
17	EDF Energies Nouvelles (FR)	1,267	428
18	Scatec Solar (NO)	1,256	622
19	Neoen (FR)	1,256	552
20	Enerparc (DE)	1,251	303
21	X-Elio (ES)	1,235	742
22	Shell (NL)	1,223	659
23	Abengoa Solar (ES)	1,179
24	AES Corp (US)	1,166	393
25	Softbank (JP)	1,164	673
26	SunPower (US)	1,145	101
27	JinkoSolar (CN)	1,139	549
28	Hareon Solar (CN)	1,112	25
29	Sempra Energy (US)	1,090	264
30	ACWA Power (SA)	1,088	300
31	Greenko Energy (IN)	1,060	60
32	8minutenergy (US)	1,047	244
33	China Sinhyes (CN)	1,040	220
34	GCL-Poly Energy (HK)	1,033	20

North American companies retain the four top spots, with NextEra Energy ranked #1 for installations since the beginning of 2019, and First Solar still top by cumulative installed capacity. The strength of India’s domestic market is underlined again by the four Indian companies in the top 11 places in the table.

Europhiles will be pleased to see Enel retaining its elevated position, and developers like Engie and Juwi climbing up the list. These companies had expanded their activities into emerging overseas markets, during the stagnation of the European solar market, but are now also pursuing post-subsidy project opportunities closer to home. In addition, Europe claims four of last year’s top five climbers – X-Elio, Shell, Scatec Solar and Neoen – joining Trina, which enters this list having started to develop its own projects in China.

Japan’s Softbank has also been a significant climber, thanks substantially to its activities through SB Energy in India.

These figures are always calculated from the bottom up – totalling the AC capacity of commissioned projects in which the listed companies are known to have been participants. Wiki-Solar seeks to check statistics with these top developers, but its database does not list the developer for every project, and therefore the totals shown may be understated. In particular, Chinese companies should doubtless be more prominent, and China should probably have more than the eight companies shown on this list.

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