Solar installers in the Dominican Republic. Presidency of the Dominican Republic

Across the Caribbean, people have installed roughly twice as many solar panels as official statistics would suggest. That is the finding of a new report, which calls on countries to make it easier for new solar installations to connect to the grid.

China, the biggest manufacturer of solar globally, has exported far more panels to the Caribbean than have officially been installed. An analysis of customs data by energy think tank Ember suggests the region had installed 2.3 gigawatts of solar between 2021 and 2024. And yet only about half of that was included in official tallies of power capacity.

In countries from Pakistan to Nigeria to Cuba , people hit by rising fuel prices are turning to solar. By and large, households and businesses install rooftop arrays that are not connected to the central power system.…