Europe faces mounting challenges in competing with global powerhouses like China and the US in PV manufacturing

Uh. Do we do much PV manufacturing in the US?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/668749/regional-distribution-of-solar-pv-module-manufacturing/

This says that we do 2.2% of global production of PV cells, following Thailand at 2.3%, India at 2.7%, Vietnam at 3.4%, and China at 84.6%.

Also, it sounds like of those, Thailand and Vietnam basically have their industry because Chinese manufacturers moved production there to dodge US tariffs on Chinese cells.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/assessing-united-states-solar-power-play

In 2012, the Obama administration’s antidumping investigation led to tariffs that reduced Chinese solar imports from 50 percent to 15 percent by 2018 (see Figure 3). Chinese manufacturers then shifted production to Southeast Asia as a consequence, focusing initially on module assembly and more recently on making investments in wafer and cell production. It was only in 2023, by which time nearly 80 percent of solar imports were from Southeast Asia, that the Department of Commerce released its determination that the majority of the value-add in panels produced in Southeast Asia by some firms was Chinese, and therefore subject to existing antidumping duties.

In 2018, the Trump administration launched a new tranche of tariffs utilizing the Section 201 mechanism, which provides temporary relief to allow domestic industry to adjust to surging imports. Unlike the previous antidumping tariffs, the Section 201 tariffs were global. However, the administration allowed an exclusion for bifacial solar panels, which later became the majority of U.S. imports.

The Biden administration extended these tariffs while also placing a 24-month “bridge” to allow imports from Southeast Asia deemed necessary for solar deployment in the United States, underscoring just how central imports from those countries had become for domestic installers, which had lobbied for exemptions. During this period, imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam were shielded from both antidumping and Section 201 tariffs. In May of this year, the bridge period officially came to an end, exposing the vast majority of U.S. cell and panel imports to a tariff rate of 14.25 percent.

And while India isn’t on there, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to find that India considers having some level of domestic solar manufacturing capacity to avoid dependence on China to be a strategic imperative, like the US, so they may not be primarily concerned about being globally competitive with China.

kagis

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/energy/can-india-match-chinas-lead-in-solar-manufacturing

The Production Linked Incentive Scheme was launched to reduce import dependence in the area of renewable energy. According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the scheme “aims to build an ecosystem for manufacturing of high efficiency solar PV modules in India”. Residential solar installation prices are much cheaper in India, mainly due to government incentives.

The government’s move to impose basic customs duty on imported solar modules and solar cells was insufficient to make the price of domestic modules competitive to imports. While an imported module retails for $0.16-0.17 / watt (roughly Rs 13-14 / watt), domestic modules are priced at about $0.27 (around Rs 23 / watt) in India.

Despite improvements in increasing its solar manufacturing capacity from 2.3 GW to 67 GW in the last 10 years, India has not yet reached China’s level, which in turn restricts the ability to attain cheaper costs of production.

The Indian manufacturing sector in general faces outdated technology, slowing the research and development in the domestic solar manufacturing sector. According to Mercom India’s India Solar Market Update Q1 2024, the average price of Chinese manufactured monocrystalline PERC solar modules fell by 48.3 per cent, while Indian ones saw a 41.7 per cent reduction — China leading by almost a 6.5 per cent difference.

The domestic market in India has limited capacity when it comes to solar cells, polysilicon, wafers and ingots. The industry is still dependent on imported components for manufacture, making it vulnerable to supply shocks.

India faces higher raw material costs, with domestic solar modules being around 10 per cent more expensive than imported ones. Smaller production scales and existing facilities operating below potential due to lack of demand for locally produced solar modules require attention. With Chinese imports being cheaper, it is still the preferred option in many cases.

As per the National Solar Energy Federation of India, cell and module manufacturing capacity is projected to reach 100GW and 150GW respectively, and the overall solar supply chain (modules, cells, wafers, ingots and polysilicon) in India is expected to reach 400 GW by 2028.

Government’s move to source all solar cells domestically from April 2026 onwards is a great step to control the dependence on imports, however, major policy changes are required to fully utilise India’s solar manufacturing potential.

Sounds like it.