The European Union threatened to impose tariffs on solar panels from China in the wake of similar US trade protection, saying EU producers may be victims of unfair price undercutting.
The EU opened a probe into whether Chinese manufacturers of solar panels sell them in the 27-nation bloc below cost, a practice known as dumping. The inquiry covers crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules or panels and cells and wafers used in them.
At stake is whether European competitors such as Solarworld AG (SWV), Germany’s largest maker of the renewable-energy technology, win levies to counter growing competition from China.
The investigation will determine whether solar panels from China are “being dumped and whether the dumped imports have caused injury to the union industry,” the European Commission, the EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The commission has nine months to decide whether to impose provisional anti-dumping duties for half a year and EU governments have 15 months to decide whether to apply “definitive” levies for five years.
China negotiations
China urged the EU to resolve trade frictions in photovoltaic products through negotiations, Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the Chinese Commerce Ministry, said today in a statement on its website. Limiting China’s solar technology will affect the development of the global photovoltaic industry and clean energy, Shen said.
China Solar Energy Holdings, a solar cells and modules maker, was unchanged at 2.9 Hong Kong cents at the midday break in Hong Kong. Suntech Power Holdings, the nation’s biggest producer of solar panels, fell 0.9 percent to 82 US cents yesterday in New York. Yingli Green Energy Holdings, the nation’s second-largest, dropped 3.1 percent to $1.56, while Trina Solar closed down 0.5 percent.
The case highlights EU concerns about the expansion of Chinese solar companies, which have grabbed market share from European rivals that were once dominant, and follows a US decision earlier this year to hit the Chinese industry with anti-dumping duties as high as 250 percent.
European market
Chinese companies have gained more than 80 percent of the market in Europe for solar goods compared with almost zero several years ago, EU ProSun, a group that represents European producers including Solarworld, said when it requested the dumping investigation in late July.
Yingli Green Energy will cooperate with the EU investigation to “prove that the conditions for the imposition of punitive tariffs are not fulfilled,” it said in a statement dated yesterday. The company’s funding sources and cost structure are “fully transparent,” Yingli Chairman Liansheng Miao said.
The increased competition from China has slashed profit margins, cut solar-panel prices and led to bankruptcies in Europe. Germany’s Q-Cells, once the biggest solar-cell maker, surrendered its lead to Suntech Power Holdings in the past four years and sought court protection from creditors in April.
Suntech Power’s media official in Europe, Bjoern Emde, couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. Thomas Young, vice president of investor relations for Trina Solar, didn’t answer calls to his office in Changzhou, China.
