Despite the bragging rights, its 77.42 gigawatts of solar energy is just a drop of water in its bucket of energy requirements and represents just 1% of the country’s total energy demands.

China has made giant strides in implementing clean energy and is slowly weaning off its economy from lustre of cheap coal power.

According to China’s National Energy Administration the production of solar energy in the country has more than doubled in 2016 to 77.42 gigawatts. China is now the world’s biggest producer of solar energy going by total production capacity. However, other country’s such as the U.S., Germany and Japan have higher solar capacity installations relative to their population.

Despite being the world’s largest producer of solar energy by capacity, it is only a drop in the bucket for the country’s enormous demand for energy. The 77.42 gigawatts represents just 1% of the country’s total energy output.

By 2020, China’s NEA plans on adding another 110 gigawatts to the national grid. By 2030, China aims at increasing the coverage of green energy power sources to 20% of its energy requirements.

Despite China obvious population advantage, not every country can compete with these figures, which essentially puts pressure on the rest of the other world to up their game.

China has made large regions  which are relatively friendly to solar energy farms.

As for the U.S., with Donald Trump at the helm devising policies that are hell bent on protecting the fossil fuel industry instead of phasing them out, no wonder it is trailing behind the dragon.