Solar industry fights Chinese anti-dumping proposals

The UK’s Solar Trade Association (STA) recently joined forces with ministers in efforts to impress upon the European Commission the damaging impact of proposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar panels.

As the deadline for responses to a consultation on anti-dumping arrived, a letter written by the STA to Trade Commissioner, Karel de Gucht, had been signed by 15 European trade associations across 12 countries.

STA chief executive officer, Paul Barwell, comments: “Jobs, growth and carbon and renewables targets will be at risk if these duties are applied on the 5th June.”

The STA’s letter states:

“Our members unanimously indicate that any level of anti-dumping and / or countervailing measure will have an immediate impact on the prices which they need to charge to their customers for PV installations. Indeed, the photovoltaic market has very quickly evolved over the last 5 years whereby photovoltaic products became a commodity rather than a high-tech product (much like other electronic products such as mobile telephones).

Taking into account also the objective for solar energy to reach grid-parity with electricity from fossil sources and the decreasing public support measures for solar energy, in order to stimulate demand for PV installations, the market with which our members operate has now declined rapidly.”