According to data collected by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in its report OECD MAGIC database of industrial subsidiesChina has subsidized its solar-related manufacturing industries by $17.4 billion between 2010 and 2024.
In contrast to China’s massive investments, OECD countries – 38 member states based mainly in Europe and the Americas, including the US – have subsidized their producers by just $3.9 billion over the same period.
During this period, the price of electricity generated by solar panels has fallen from almost $0.40/kWh to less than $0.04/kWh – a drop of more than 90%.
By May, amid ongoing fighting in the Middle East, Europe had saved $11.6 billion in energy costs thanks to solar power.
During the fifteen years in question, China’s share of the total was 81%. In 2024, the gap narrowed sharply, with China falling to 62% and the OECD’s share rising to 38%. Throughout 2024, China supported more than 500 gigawatts of generation and a terawatt of capacity, versus the rest of the world’s roughly 60 gigawatts.
Over the entire fifteen-year period, of the $3.9 billion given by OECD countries, 54% was realized in the last two years. Most of it was in the US via the 45X Manufacturing Tax Credit instrument created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The report noted that the accuracy of the U.S. data was helped by tax reporting requirements.
By 2025 alone, it is estimated that the world will have deployed almost $500 billion in solar energy, while the US and Europe alone will have deployed almost $150 billion.
The most common Chinese incentives were below-market loans and direct subsidies to companies. The country recently ended an export tax credit, leading to a significant export boom.
Subsidies received by the 15 industrial sectors covered by the report totaled $108 billion in 2024. Solar energy was the most subsidized sector, with the $21 billion representing almost a fifth of the total value over the period 2010 to 2024.
Correlating BloombergNEF installation volume data with OECD industrial stimulus volumes, the chart above shows that global solar subsidy intensity has fallen by just over 88%.
In 2010, the subsidy was $0.048/W to support the deployment of 18.3 GW of capacity. While the total subsidy amount increased by almost 400% in 2024, the volume of solar panels increased by more than 3200%, further reducing the subsidy to $0.0057/W.
You can see very clearly that this is not a ‘subsidy’, but an investment – and a very good one at that.
In the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENAs) Renewable energy and jobs: annual reviewIt is suggested that solar employment has increased from almost 1.4 million people in 2012 – to more than 7 million in 2024. During that period, the subsidy amount per job has ranged from as little as $190 to $599 in recent years.
All of this precedes any consideration that Americans will die from air pollution from coal and gas directly due to the ban on solar panelsrising to millions worldwide. It also fails to address our species’ most pressing challenge: managing a warming climate that threatens to cause more damage than most can imagine.
