China solar cell exports grow 73% in 2025

As global pressures to manufacture panels locally have increased, the supply chain is changing and it is no longer sufficient to track only panel exports. Based on the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) reporting of exports, Ember now reports the monthly exports of these products by country. Details of how this dataset is compiled can be found in the Methodology.

Cell and wafer exports now drive solar export growth

For the first time since GACC reported panel and cell exports separately in 2022, panel export growth is stagnating. Cumulative panel exports have fallen by 5.2% year-on-year in the first 6 months of 2025 (-6.7 GW). Cell and wafer exports, however, have increased by 76% (+19 GW) and 26% (+8.6 GW) respectively. This increase means that combined solar product capacity exported by China is 11% higher than in the first half of 2024. The 208 GW that has been exported so far this year is more than twice Germany’s total installed solar capacity as of the end of 2024.  

The growth in cell and wafer exports is a multi-year trend. From 2022 to 2024, cell exports have increased from 23 GW to 57 GW (+144%). Wafers increased from 36 GW to 60 GW (+67%) over the same period. So far in 2025, China has exported more solar cells (7.5 GW) and wafers (7 GW) on average each month than the total installed solar capacity of Portugal (6.3 GW). This growth has pushed cells and wafers to now make up more than 40% of China’s exported solar products.