China has just added a significant amount of solar power to the country within the first quarter, matching all of France's own supply of solar energy.

As much as 5.04 gigawatts of solar capacity was added to the grids of China. The National Energy Administration (NEA) released a statement on Monday saying that the installation of the solar grid was done in the three months starting January. It ended March 31.

Like Us on Facebook

With this new addition, China now has a total of 33 gigawatts (GW) of solar power supply.

In a 2014 report done by company Pure Energy, China was in second place in their list of top 10 countries using solar energy.

At the time, China only had 18.3 GW of solar energy and came in behind Germany that had 35.5 GW. With the recent developments, China inches closer to being the top country to use the most solar energy.

Nick Duan, an analyst from Bloomberg New Energy Finance based in Beijing, said that the construction of the most recent additions began in the first quarter after they secured local approvals.

Any development or construction in China needs to start within a year after approvals are given and validated.

The additions won't seem to stop, as China plans on installing as much as 17.8 more GW of solar power in the rest of the year. This is nearly two and a half times the solar energy capacity that the United States added in 2014.

The efforts toward solar energy are part of China's plan to cap carbon emissions within the next decade and a half.

The NEA said that utility-scale photovoltaic power plants account for 4.38 GW of solar power capacity in the first quarter. Distributed projects comprise the remainder.

With solar capacities growing steadily, the NEA has called for a quality check to be carried out nationwide. Local governments are required to report their inspections by the end of July.  

Tagssolar power