Global solar boom leaving Canada in the shade — but federal shift could change sector fortunes

Canada has fallen far off-pace in the international solar power race, with a scant 1.3 per cent of the country’s electricity production flowing from photovoltaic (PV) plants last year, far below other markets in the global north.

Off the back of its vast hydropower network, Canada generated almost 80 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 2024, almost twice the global average, Ember Energy, a research house, found in its 2025 Global Electricity Review. But nationwide solar build-out fell by 50 per cent year over year, bucking the worldwide bull run PV is on.

Solar power is driving the global energy transition like no other technology, with 474 terawatt-hours of new production – roughly two-thirds of Canada total generation in 2023 – added worldwide this year. Half the growth came from China, where renewables met more than 80 per cent of its national demand increase in 2024. 

More solar has been deployed around the world in the past three years than in the previous six decades, with two terawatts of plant now grid-connected – enough to power one billion homes. 

Yet in Canada, a mere 314 megawatts (MW) of solar was switched on last year, down from 765 MW the year before, according to figures from the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, an industry body. A total of 4,000 MW of utility-scale PV power is now operating in Canada.

By comparison, Germany, which has similar hours of sunlight to Canada, already has 15,000 MW of panels wired in.

“Canada’s story is a weird outlier within developed economies that started building solar farms in the 2010s, from Germany to Spain to the US,” said the report’s lead author, Nic Fulghum, speaking with Canada’s National Observer.

“Germany and Spain and the US – and, of course, China and Asia more widely – have seen consistent and rapid build-out of solar power, and faster and faster in recent years.” 

Canada, Fulghum believes, has “stepped outside the global trend” due to the widely held belief that the country “already has a relatively decarbonized power sector,” thanks to electricity sourced from hydropower and nuclear.

“There is a huge amount of potential for Canada to go much faster and much further with its energy transition,” he said. "The marriage of solar and wind power and hydropower is a match made in heaven: on one side, with hydropower you have this massive dispatchable resource, reservoir hydropower, and on the other, flexible delivery from solar and wind.

“There isn’t any real techno-economic barrier in Canada that would prevent integration of a huge amount of solar power onto the grid.”

Early progress squandered

Canada was an early-mover in the solar sector with a number of pioneering PV projects brought online in the 2010s – including the once world-leading 97 MW Sarnia solar farm, which was declared a “beacon of sustainable energy” by local officials when it started up in 2009.

But the Canadian market has been buffeted by shifting provincial government policies on renewables support and public misconceptions around the technology’s functionality in Canada’s harsh, snowy winters. Meanwhile, single multi-gigawatt PV farms have been developed in China and India that have more power output than the entire Canadian fleet. 

Dan Balaban, CEO of Greengate Power, a Canadian renewables developer that in 2022 brought online Alberta’s 465 MW Travers solar project, the country’s biggest,  believes the shift emerging in Canada from “energy transition to energy expansion” will breathe new life into the solar sector.

“Given the forecast electricity demand [in provinces across Canada], there is certainly potential for many more projects like [Travers],” he said. “Solar power and renewables more widely has had its challenges in Canada. But every challenge is an opportunity for growth.” 

This is true for the sector and the country in its energy transition, Balaban added, speaking with Canada’s National Observer. “We need to get building now.”

‘Fresh start’ for solar?

Though Canada has lagged in developing its solar resource, Fulghum thinks the upcoming federal election offers the Canadian government a “fresh start,” pointing to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s messaging on the “new economy” of cleantech and decarbonized power to be built in the country.  

He notes Brazil’s success in fast-tracking development of national solar and wind power industries in connection with the country's existing hydroelectric network as a possible model for Canada to revisit.

“In 2019, the solar share of Brazilian energy mix was one per cent. Now in five years it is 10 per cent,” said Fulghum. “Canada could make a huge amount of progress in a short period of time.

“And with all the grid stability and flexibility that the country’s hydropower provides” because it doesn’t rely on variable resources such as wind and solar, “electricity will be cheaper, and you can pass that savings onto the consumer.”

Though Canada does not generally spring to mind as a prime solar market, the country has this “built-in” advantage, noted Fulghum. 

He added that the country’s strong solar resource – particularly over the prairie provinces, an “extensive and well-developed” electricity infrastructure, and the potential to boost grid resilience by “following the sun” from east to west - all point to the opportunity for a clean energy transformation in Canada within five years.

“Whoever is prime minister on April 28 [federal election day], they will have the opportunity to drive ahead projects that will show benefit - clean solar power to the grid, jobs created, grids greened - during their term in power,” said Fulghum.

Solar technology could also help make up for Canada’s drifting climate action targets through its “super-quick deployment,” he added, with project timelines to build industrial-scale farms a fraction of a gas-fired or nuclear power plant. 

Alberta is Canada’s current solar hot spot, with 17 new projects totalling 402 MW of new capacity added to the grid in 2022 that boosted provincial capacity to over almost 1,150 MW. But a provincial moratorium declared in February 2024 largely stopped sector expansion in its tracks.

Growth in gigawatts

Fernando Melo, federal director for policy and government affairs at CANREA, an industry body, said Canada has “great solar resources that we are only beginning to harness,” noting that new utility-scale power procurements coming in 2025 in several provinces, including solar-specific auctions in Quebec and Saskatchewan, would help spur deployment of PV plant.

“We can, and will, do so much more,” he said, speaking with Canada's National Observer. 

“US tariffs aside, we need consistent, long-term, supportive provincial and federal policies that encourage the deployment and adoption of this affordable clean-energy technology that is available to install at scale today, to meet our growing energy demand for the future.”

Balaban lays the blame on the “polarization” of the energy debate in recent years. “Energy – globally but also in Canada – is being framed in an adversarial manner. This is getting in the way of our building the energy capacity and infrastructure we need.

“Solar [power] is being overshadowed by a lot of big existential issues in Canada today. But energy – whatever the resource – is a strategic asset. We need to pull together on developing our phenomenal renewable energy resources.”

The rest of the world isn’t waiting on Canada. Against the backdrop of global oil and gas markets that are forecast by the International Energy Agency, an energy industry watchdog, to peak by 2030 before starting to decline at speed, the accelerated pace of the renewables build-out - led by solar – globally is “set to continue,” said Fulghum.

“The next gigawatt is just around the corner. Canada has all the building blocks to make solar a key contributor” to the energy transition in the country, he said. 

“This is an amazing political opportunity for Canada. This is a technology transition. It’s happening all over the world. If the government turns its back on solar, it will certainly be left behind.”