Ian Williams Ian Williams

China is trying to strangle the world’s solar panel industry 

(Photo by Hu Xiaofei/VCG via Getty Images)

China is moving to consolidate and exploit its position as world leader in solar power technologies, by restricting the export of key components. The move could deliver a severe blow to the European and American solar industries and is a stark warning about the dangers of over-dependence on Beijing for critical technologies of the future. It also illustrates the impact of China’s industrial-scale cyber theft. 

Beijing is reportedly looking to add raw materials and other vital items used in the manufacture of solar panels to a list of items that could be restricted in order to ‘help safeguard national security’ and require special permission for export. The list does not include the panels themselves, in which China dominates global supplies, thus tightening its grip on the market. 

The move comes almost nine years after a US grand jury indicted in absentia five agents of the People’s Liberation Army for hacking the computers of SolarWorld, then America’s biggest solar tech company, and stealing key know-how. The hackers ‘stole thousands of files including information about SolarWorld’s cash flow, manufacturing metrics, production line information, costs, and privileged attorney-client communications,’ according to the May 2014 indictment. The information was made available to Chinese competitors and heavily subsidised solar panels incorporating SolarWorld’s innovations were soon flooding the global market. In 2017, the German parent of SolarWorld filed for bankruptcy, no longer able to compete. 

All of which makes the case for extreme caution about creating dependencies on an increasingly aggressive China.

The case still rankles in the US, which watched as China went on to build a dominating position in solar power on the back of stolen technology. It now produces 97 per cent of the world’s wafers – the ultra-thin silicon squares that are pieced together into solar panels – and overall controls three-quarters of the solar energy supply chain, the components and raw materials required by the industry.   

Some see the latest Chinese move as part of the on-going tech war with the US – a riposte to Washington’s efforts to restrict Chinese access to advanced chips and the components and equipment necessary to make them.

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