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Germany once had a flourishing industry producing solar panels. Domestic demand was high, supply followed, driven by high subsidies to home-owners producing sol

by corty 5y ago

Germany once had a flourishing industry producing solar panels. Domestic demand was high, supply followed, driven by high subsidies to home-owners producing solar electricity. For a few years all was fine, until Chinese manufacturers provided lower-priced panels. Instead of protecting domestic manufacturing through import duties (which would have been justified because Chinese were dumping below cost at times), the government stood by and did nothing. Now politicians are crying about the long way panels travel over from China and that we no longer have domestic manufacturing...

spaniard89277 5y ago
Just for curiosity I went to see if the only spanish produce I know is still kicking, it seems they are: https://atersa.com/en/products-services/photovoltaic-modules/ https://atersa.com/en/products-services/photovoltaic-modules... I don't know how they survived the prices dumping.
- corty 5y ago
  From clicking around a little, it seems they were bought by elecnor, who seem to, among other things, use the solar panels to build power plants. So they found a buyer who just bought its own manufacturer, selling the excess on the side. Nonetheless, half the models they are offering seem to be made in China.
philipkglass 5y ago
The EU imposed minimum import price restrictions on Chinese solar modules for 5 years from 2013-2018: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/08/31/eu-ends-mip-against-chinese/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/08/31/eu-ends-mip-against-c... As I see it, there are a couple of reasons German manufacturers couldn't regain competitiveness during this period: - The scale of their operations is too small. The largest Chinese manufacturers operate at a different order of magnitude. - Making comparable products at the same scale, Chinese products would still tend to cost less. For the same reasons that you can get a made-in-China toaster cheaper than a made-in-Germany one. At its peak, leading German manufacturer SolarWorld had capacity to produce about 1,400 megawatts of modules per year: https://www.printedelectronicsnow.com/contents/view_breaking-news/2014-11-06/solarworld-expands-production-capacity-in-the/ https://www.printedelectronicsnow.com/contents/view_breaking... Leading Chinese manufacturer Longi shipped 24,500 megawatts of modules last year: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/longi-crowned-king-of-solar-with-24-5-gw-of-panels-shipped-in-2020/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/longi-crowned-king-of... The only profitable American solar company, First Solar, is also the largest, with 8,000 megawatts of capacity targeted by the end of this year: https://www.pv-tech.org/first-solar-adding-series-6-module-capacity-in-the-us-while-planning-wider-international-footprint/ https://www.pv-tech.org/first-solar-adding-series-6-module-c... That's smaller than the Chinese behemoths but still large enough to compete internationally. What I have seen from the EU is that even ambitions for new solar gigafactories are too small -- 1000-3000 megawatts of annual capacity. That still won't get costs within spitting distance of First Solar or the big Asian manufacturers. Part of the reason for the limited ambition is that there is no EU-wide consensus favoring "European" solar products. Germany wants to boost German solar manufacturing. France wants to boost French solar manufacturing. Spain wants to boost Spanish manufacturing. Individual countries only care about the EU policies so far as they favor that country; neither Spain nor Greece is particularly interested in policies boosting European solar manufacturing if the manufacturing ends up regionally concentrated in e.g. Italy. So these smaller solar manufacturers are stuck in a local maximum where they survive on political considerations (at least for a while) but can't grow to scales where they would be internationally competitive.
- corty 5y ago
  Yes, mostly you are right, nowadays. Problem is, imho, only in 2007 or 2008 China surpassed Germany in production (I can't find a source atm, just from memory). That would have been the right time for the EU involvement, but they took 5 more years where German manufacturers were hung out to dry.

by corty 5y ago

spaniard89277 5y ago

Just for curiosity I went to see if the only spanish produce I know is still kicking, it seems they are: https://atersa.com/en/products-services/photovoltaic-modules/ https://atersa.com/en/products-services/photovoltaic-modules... I don't know how they survived the prices dumping.

corty 5y ago
From clicking around a little, it seems they were bought by elecnor, who seem to, among other things, use the solar panels to build power plants. So they found a buyer who just bought its own manufacturer, selling the excess on the side. Nonetheless, half the models they are offering seem to be made in China.

philipkglass 5y ago

The EU imposed minimum import price restrictions on Chinese solar modules for 5 years from 2013-2018: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/08/31/eu-ends-mip-against-chinese/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/08/31/eu-ends-mip-against-c... As I see it, there are a couple of reasons German manufacturers couldn't regain competitiveness during this period: - The scale of their operations is too small. The largest Chinese manufacturers operate at a different order of magnitude. - Making comparable products at the same scale, Chinese products would still tend to cost less. For the same reasons that you can get a made-in-China toaster cheaper than a made-in-Germany one. At its peak, leading German manufacturer SolarWorld had capacity to produce about 1,400 megawatts of modules per year: https://www.printedelectronicsnow.com/contents/view_breaking-news/2014-11-06/solarworld-expands-production-capacity-in-the/ https://www.printedelectronicsnow.com/contents/view_breaking... Leading Chinese manufacturer Longi shipped 24,500 megawatts of modules last year: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/longi-crowned-king-of-solar-with-24-5-gw-of-panels-shipped-in-2020/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/longi-crowned-king-of... The only profitable American solar company, First Solar, is also the largest, with 8,000 megawatts of capacity targeted by the end of this year: https://www.pv-tech.org/first-solar-adding-series-6-module-capacity-in-the-us-while-planning-wider-international-footprint/ https://www.pv-tech.org/first-solar-adding-series-6-module-c... That's smaller than the Chinese behemoths but still large enough to compete internationally. What I have seen from the EU is that even ambitions for new solar gigafactories are too small -- 1000-3000 megawatts of annual capacity. That still won't get costs within spitting distance of First Solar or the big Asian manufacturers. Part of the reason for the limited ambition is that there is no EU-wide consensus favoring "European" solar products. Germany wants to boost German solar manufacturing. France wants to boost French solar manufacturing. Spain wants to boost Spanish manufacturing. Individual countries only care about the EU policies so far as they favor that country; neither Spain nor Greece is particularly interested in policies boosting European solar manufacturing if the manufacturing ends up regionally concentrated in e.g. Italy. So these smaller solar manufacturers are stuck in a local maximum where they survive on political considerations (at least for a while) but can't grow to scales where they would be internationally competitive.

corty 5y ago
Yes, mostly you are right, nowadays. Problem is, imho, only in 2007 or 2008 China surpassed Germany in production (I can't find a source atm, just from memory). That would have been the right time for the EU involvement, but they took 5 more years where German manufacturers were hung out to dry.