European Commission reveals August duty rates on Chinese solar companies

The European Commission has published in its Official Journal details of duties levied on Chinese manufacturers with Delsolar hit the hardest.

Yingli fared best with a duty rate of 37.3% as well as Jinzhou Yangguang Energy 38.3%. Delsolar was handed the highest tariff of 67.9%

However, lobby group AFASE has expressed doubts over the prima facie data handed by complainant EU ProSun to the EC which was used to devise the duty rates. AFASE claimed the survey produced by Germany-based market research company Europressedienst presented to the EC contained many discrepancies making it invalid for the investigation.

A poll by Europressedienst contacted 2,303 PV installers of which only 532 participated in the telephone survey. Residents of all 27 EU member states, most of whom were from Germany, Italy and France, were contacted, although the exact number of participants from each EU country has not been disclosed.

Europressedienst said that the number of companies questioned was “proportional to the capacity of newly installed PV systems in 2012”. Last year, overall PV capacity in Europe totalled 16.5GWp.

The findings of the market research company, as reported in the Official Journal, showed that overall consumption in the EU of Chinese solar products increased by 221% for modules, 87% for cells and 29% for wafers between 2009 and the investigation period of 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012. It also showed that consumption decreased in the investigation period compared to 2011.

Therefore, although EU consumption grew, the market share of European manufacturers decreased during the investigation period.

On the other hand, Europressedienst found that Chinese exporters took advantage of growing consumption in the EU by lowering prices and therefore increasing its market share.

For modules, the average import price decreased by 64%, the average import price of cells from China dropped by 42% and the average import price of wafers decreased by 40 %

As a result, the EC said Chinese exporters had caused injury to the European Union and determined the duty rates based on Europressedienst’s findings.

The journal also noted that the imposition of duties “may lead to an increase of prices in the union of the product under the investigation thus possibly generating less PV installations in the short term”.

The EC advises downstream companies, which it said would be the hardest hit by duties, to look elsewhere for employment as they would have “the skills necessary to benefit from the increased demand in these neighbouring sectors”.

Duty rates applicable from 6 August for companies that cooperated with the EC investigation are as follows: