Many overseas PV companies bankrupt Chinese enterprises

The strong rise of Apple in recent years was once seen as a model for “going your own path, leaving others nowhere else to go”. Today, Chinese PV companies have also been labelled by overseas operators with the same label.

As the debt crisis spreads from Europe to the United States, the global photovoltaic market, which has just warmed up, has once again become overwhelming. Some overseas photovoltaic giants have failed because of their unbearable "winter". Just last month, there were three solar companies in the United States that declared bankruptcy, including Solyndra, a prestigious company in the industry. This appears to be caused by the squeeze of Chinese PV companies by some overseas people, while German companies continue to lobby the EU for sanctions against Chinese PV companies.

Overseas PV companies successively "closed"

It is reported that the other two PV companies that filed for bankruptcy in the United States in August this year are Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts and Spectra Solar in New York.

This spring, BP Solar, a subsidiary of BP, also stopped production. In addition, Blue Chip Energy, a well-known photovoltaic manufacturer in Austria, also declared bankruptcy at the end of July.

According to GTM Research's survey data, about one-fifth of PV capacity in the United States disappeared due to bankruptcy or suspension of production in the past year, mainly due to the inability to compete with China's cheap solar products.

A series of corporate bankruptcies has caused great concern overseas. The New York Times commented that the bankruptcy events showed that in the global solar energy industry, China has obtained an absolute monopoly advantage - China has monopolized 60% of the global PV market. Although solar companies in Europe, America and Japan still have the advantage of leading China in terms of technology, they are totally unable to compare with Chinese companies in terms of cost control.

In fact, in recent years, there are indeed many Chinese first-line PV manufacturers that are aggressively advancing into overseas markets and are in short supply with local companies. For example, in November 2009, Suntech Power announced the construction of the first solar cell production plant in the United States, becoming the first Chinese PV module manufacturer to set up a plant in the United States. Since then, LDK has also announced that it has acquired 70% of U.S. Solar Power Co., Ltd. for about US$33 million, which will enter the North American PV downstream market.

“China has become the maker of global solar industry standards,” said Shayle Kann, an analyst at GTM Research at the Boston Clean Energy Industry Research Center. “Now many companies are competing to offer discounts to Chinese solar companies in order to win business.”

German companies are under EU sanctions but in the eyes of competitors, the arrival of Chinese PV companies is not a good thing.

The GTM Research report pointed out that currently there are only two photovoltaic companies in the United States that can compete with China, one is First Solar, and its cadmium telluride thin film battery production technology is completely different from its Chinese counterparts. The other is SunPower. The main reason for the survivability of the company is the high conversion efficiency of the company's products. Chinese products cannot be replaced.

It is learned that Frank A sbeck, CEO of SolarWorld, a German large-scale PV module manufacturer that has just closed down a California factory and several German production lines, has joined other companies in lobbying with the German government and the European Union that China's PV companies are dumping on the European market. The government should impose sanctions.

For a time, Chinese PV companies have to face the challenge of changes in trade policy while facing changes in market demand.

The change in market is the main reason for bankruptcy because domestic PV companies do not agree with the view that “the bankruptcy of overseas companies is caused by Chinese companies”.

An industry source pointed out that the business strategy of the United States Evergreen Solar Company was formulated a few years ago. At that time, the price of polysilicon as a raw material of photovoltaic modules was operating at a high level, and the company hoped to obtain a competitive advantage by using less polysilicon. Unfortunately, in the past two years, the price of polysilicon plummeted continuously, falling from nearly 500 US dollars per kilogram in early 2008 to the current 50 US dollars per kilogram.

“In the meantime, Evergreen Solar has almost no time to relocate the industry, and its single technology is simply not able to respond as quickly as other manufacturers. In addition, the company is also affected by the rise of the US-based company First Solar,” the industry sources said. .

As for the sanctions applications repeatedly filed by German companies, a person in charge of a PV module company in Jiangsu stated that “I believe that the EU will not accept the application easily, because if it is really accepted, the trade friction between China and Europe will rise sharply”.

“Anti-dumping has two basic judgments. First, does the government have subsidies? In fact, the Chinese government does not directly subsidize this industry. Second, does our Chinese company have any behavior that is lower than the market price and goes abroad to dump? If not It is also not true,” said Ma Xuelu, executive director of the China Renewable Energy Society.

He expressed the hope that through the dialogue between enterprises and enterprises, between associations and associations, to achieve better industrial integration and achieve a rational division of labor in the photovoltaic industry in order to reduce costs. He also expressed that he hopes to resolve opposition and confrontation through dialogue.

Prof. Cui Rongqiang of the Shanghai Jiaotong University Solar Energy Institute believes that China can prove that China's PV products are not dumped overseas through the launch of the domestic application market.