The dumping of cheap Chinese panels on the European market will continue for at least another year to a year and a half, thinks Jan-Jaap van Os, co-founder of Exasun.
Chinese solar panels have been flooding the European market in recent years. That is good news for consumers, because the price of panels has fallen sharply. But European producers are having great difficulty selling their panels due to the surplus of cheaper Chinese products.
According to the European trade association of solar panel manufacturers ESMC, there are currently 140 to 170 million Chinese panels in European ports and warehouses. That is enough for 70 to 85 gigawatts of production capacity. For comparison: in 2023, 56 gigawatts of production capacity with solar panels were installed.
In short, there is now more in storage than can be installed in a year. The supply of new panels also remains high.
High production costs of solar panels
The Swiss company Meyer Burger, one of the largest European manufacturers of solar panels, decided in January to move production to Germany Unpleasant move to the United States. Reason: too high production costs.
Two important Norwegian producers of wafers, the most important part of solar panels, have stopped making them. Also among the approximately one hundred and fifty panel manufacturers in Europe there is a battlefield going on.
Bankruptcies are looming
The European producers, united in the ESMC, think that half of the production capacity in Europe will disappear in the next eight weeks. Due to energy prices that are four to six times higher in Europe than in the United States and China, the power-hungry production of panels is much more expensive here.
In the US and China, costs are lower because production uses much more cheap, but polluting, gas and coal. Taxes in the countries are also lower.
Exasun saw no recovery
The Dutch Exasun closed at the end of January bankrupt. The company, which currently has 26 employees in a factory in The Hague, sees competition from China as the main cause, says co-founder Jan-Jaap van Os. Founded in 2015, it is the oldest solar panel manufacturer in the Netherlands.
“The virtual closing of the borders to Chinese solar panels by India and the United States created a large surplus on the European market, causing sales prices to drop by more than 50 percent. We tried for a while, including by selling less than the half of the people to work. But we saw no recovery.”
And that will not happen, Van Os predicts: “Chinese companies are many times larger and demonstrably sell at half their cost price. The European Union will not take action against this.”
The Netherlands has five other solar panel manufacturers, who are also not having an easy time, according to Van Os.
Europe is not self-sufficient with solar panels
The EU actually had big plans in 2022 to become more self-sufficient in the production of solar panels. At least 30 percent had to come from Europe. Now it is less than 5 percent.
According to Van Os, Europe is not critical enough of the Chinese. “The EU is looking closely at how we can become more circular and encourages the production of higher quality panels. But they do nothing about those cheap imports.”
Will the automotive sector also be destroyed?
According to Van Os and other market experts, energy prices for companies must be reduced. Energy is the most important cost item in the production of panels, but companies are not helped with this. “The subsidy now too often goes to the investment in setting up the factory,” says Van Os.
He believes that much more of this support should be spent on energy bills and that there should be import taxes. Europe must take action quickly, he says. “It is now the solar panel industry where companies are disappearing. But the next sector in Europe to suffer from this is the car industry.”
2024-02-08 06:02:17
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