CHINESE PANELS FLOOD THE MARKET

Too many solar panels and not enough installers has resulted in “an existential threat” to the solar PV manufacturing sector in Europe.

The cause is an oversupply of subsidised solar PV modules imported from China. At the moment there is a stock of an estimated 140-170 million PV panels in European ports and warehouses, equivalent to 70–85GW capacity.

“The oversupply is the result of an aggressive Chinese industry strategy, which has led to a collapse in module prices and left European PV manufacturers with large unsold inventories,” Dr Johan Lindahl, secretary general of European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC), stated recently.

Because there are high costs associated with this warehousing, Chinese manufacturers have been flooding the market at below cost, the ESMC claims.

“If policy makers don’t take immediate actions to safeguard the solar PV module producers in the EU, relocating abroad or bankruptcy are the only options,” Lindahl added. “We need active political and financial support now.”

So far the ESMC’s pleading has fallen on deaf ears in Brussels.

“Given that we currently rely to a very important degree on imports to reach EU solar deployment targets, any potential measure needs to be weighed against the objectives we have set ourselves when it comes to the energy transition,” Commissioner Mairead McGuinness commented.