“We cannot do without Chinese panels”: the EU surrenders to Beijing’s excessive production power
Despite the European solar industry's difficulties faced with cheap Chinese panels, the bloc cannot close its borders to imports of photovoltaic energy equipment, according to European Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson. The Commission surrenders to Beijing's excessive industrial power.
“ There are several proposals on how to support our industry, but it is clear that we cannot close the borders because we need solar panels,” Simson said on Monday, ahead of a meeting of EU energy ministers, who will discuss of possible support for EU solar energy companies.
“ We have to support our industry, but we need all the products to achieve our very ambitious goals,” Simson said, as reported by Reuters. It is therefore implicitly admitted that the policies of independent production of the panels have failed and that these are not and cannot be competitive with the Chinese ones.
Many EU manufacturers have closed plants or plan to take such measures, as a wave of solar panel imports, especially from China, and high panel inventory levels are threatening demand for the more expensive equipment solar products produced in the EU.
EU solar producers need urgent support, the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) said in early February.
The EU has an oversupply of subsidized photovoltaic modules, imported from China. According to the ESMC, the EU currently has a stock of around 140-170 million PV modules in European ports and warehouses, equivalent to a capacity of 70-85 GW. This is an enormous quantity, much greater than that installed in 2023, equal to 55.9 GW, which was already considerably higher than that installed in 2022. Due to the banal rule of diminishing marginal returns, this is a much higher power to the one that will be installed in 2024.
“The European solar PV manufacturing industry is facing an existential threat. If politicians do not take immediate action to safeguard photovoltaic module producers in the EU, it will still mean production desertification.
ESMC, which represents almost the entire PV module manufacturing value chain of nearly 80 European companies, urged the European Commission in a January letter to take “immediate action to protect EU PV module producers in this crisis".
“The EU is entering a crucial phase where, over the next 4-8 weeks, major EU PV module manufacturers and their European suppliers are ready to shut down production lines unless mitigation measures are promptly implemented. substantial emergency,” ESMC said.
The association called on the EU to change state aid rules to allow further government support for solar producers and to establish a Europe-wide purchasing structure for PV module stocks accumulated in the EU. This is a double surrender for the EU, because it would mark the cancellation of one of its basic principles and the admission that it is not the industrial power it claims, now without reason, to be.
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The article “We cannot do without Chinese panels”: the EU surrenders to Beijing's excessive production power comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/non-possiamo-fare-a-meno-dei-pannelli-cinesi-la-ue-si-arrende-allo-strapotere-produttivo-di-pechino/ on Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:22:02 +0000.