26GW! Another photovoltaic market with great potential worth exploring

The Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA) predicts that Canada will add 17GW to 26GW of Solar Photovoltaic capacity over the next decade.

This is one of the key takeaways from the report, "Canada's Renewable EnergyMarket Outlook: Wind, Solar, Storage," released jointly by the industry association and consulting firm Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors. The firm also predicts that 12GW to 16GW of Energy Storage will be added by 2035.

The combined installed capacity of solar photovoltaic, wind, and energy storage will grow by a further 50-60% between 2035 and 2050. This growth will cause the share of wind and solar in Canada's electricity supply to increase from 10% today to 21% by 2035, primarily driven by the growth of wind power (30-51GW).

Combined, these three technologies are expected to account for more than 70% of all new electricity supply capacity in Canada between 2025 and 2050.

The 26GW of new solar photovoltaic capacity represents a more than tenfold increase in the 2.3GW of installed capacity of this technology as of July 2025. Energy storage will follow a similar growth pattern to solar PV over the next decade, reaching 1 GW of installed capacity by July 2025. Wind energy leads the three technologies, with over 17 GW of installed capacity by July 2025.

In addition, the report notes that in addition to installed capacity, there are currently 600 MW of active procurement opportunities for solar PV and 3.4 GW of energy storage, as well as 11.5 GW of technology-agnostic or hybrid solar-wind projects. However, CanREA states that these procurements are just the "tip of the iceberg."

Across these three technologies, average annual investments of CAD$1.4-20 billion (USD$1.02-1.45 billion) are expected between 2025 and 2035.

The majority of installed large-scale ground-mounted solar capacity is located in Alberta, with nearly 2 GW of operational solar PV, followed by Ontario and the Prairies.