Some argue the new tax on chinese solar cells is too high,
while others feel it is still too low. Who's right?
New Hampshire, USA --
In the quest to "level the playing field," the 31 percent
anti-dumping tariff announced Thursday was a good start, said
SolarWorld President Gordon Brinser, but even more is needed to
bring the industry back into balance.
"I'm sure that solar manufacturers in other Asian and
European countries will be able to profitably offer solar
modules in the U. S. market at prices well within the
'cost-plus-31-percent-tax' that will be applied to Chinese
modules."
-- Tony Clifford, CEO, Standard Solar
Brinser said for an industry that has seen 50 percent
drop in panel prices over the past year, the preliminary
ruling is just part of the remedy. And his company feels
that between now and later this year when a final
determination is made, Chinese panels will be taxed at
an even higher rate. By then we’ll start to see a
“rebuilding of American solar manufacturing.” And it’s
when, he said, the market will emerge as free of
intervention, and with a renewed focus on innovation
that will be stimulated by the growing manufacturing
base.
But many of the leading Chinese manufacturers are
adamant that they haven’t been dumping their products
and they are publicly confident that the final numbers
will in fact be lower than what we saw Thursday.
For an industry desperately seeking clarity, the
notion that the issue is not really resolved underscores
the bitter divide that’s been drawn and the enormous
scale of what’s at stake.
The preliminary rulings for both the lower
countervailing duties (CVD) and the much steeper
anti-dumping duties will go through further Department
of Commerce (DOC) scrutiny, and Chinese manufacturers
are sure to make the case that the numbers are higher
than they ought to be, while SolarWorld will argue they
are still too low. The rate at which tariffs are
initially set often differs from the final
determination, so there is still a lot of push and pull
to be had.
According to Vishal Shah of Deutsche Bank, this
process is currently unfolding for the CVD case with the
DOC investigating glass subsidies and potentially
excessive rebates of value added tax.
The issue has dominated the solar landscape from
American rooftops to Chinese production lines. And it’s
been watched intently across boardrooms in Europe and
even in growing markets like India, whose domestic solar
manufacturers are also having trouble competing on price
in an industry increasingly dominated by China.
Thursday’s ruling and reaction indicate how Chinese
and domestic companies alike view the lucrative American
solar market. The U.S. installed just shy of 2 gigawatts
of solar in 2011 and barring a repeal of the Investment
Tax Credit (ITC), most analysts see significant growth
ahead — even without the recently expired 1603 grant.
The basis for much of this growth — past, present and
certainly future — has been low-cost Chinese panels that
have dominated the market at the expense of American
producers.
For Trina Solar, the world’s fourth largest supplier
of PV modules, the American market is labeled as
“strategic,” meaning it expects it to sustain itself
without the need for subsidies within the next three to
five years.
“Our investment in the U.S. won’t get smaller,” said
Mike Grunow, Trina’s Marketing Director for the
Americas. “We’ll be here in a major way and we’re very
bullish on this market.”
In Search of Winners
A day after the announcement, the industry is
grappling with a new reality. What will change because
of these tariffs. Will America become a manufacturing
leader because of this? How will these changes impact
price and installation? And how will China respond?
Tony Clifford, CEO of developer and EPC contractor
Standard Solar, isn’t so sure higher prices will do
anything to significantly help American panel
manufacturers. There will be winners, he said. But
they’re just as likely to be panel makers based in
Japan, Korea and other countries where large-scale
operations are starting to thrive.
“Chinese companies are not the only foreign
manufacturers shipping cells and modules to the United
States,” he said. “I'm sure that solar manufacturers in
other Asian and European countries will be able to
profitably offer solar modules in the U. S. market at
prices well within the ‘cost-plus-31-percent-tax’ that
will be applied to Chinese modules.”
He also noted that the industry has a real deadline
hanging over its head, and that’s the time left before
the federal ITC expires at the end of 2016. He fears the
trade dispute has distracted the industry from its
collective objective — to become cost-competitive
without subsidies in key markets within the next four
and a half years.
“If we don't, it will not matter who wins or loses a
trade war in 2012,” he said.
Brinser said SolarWorld should benefit from the new
tariff and that prices industrywide will likely go up,
but that ultimately the free market will decide on
pricing. He admits that while the intent was to
eliminate practices that harm American manufacturers,
companies outside the U.S. are just as likely to benefit
from the ruling and fill the capacity gap.
What Happens Next?
Analyst Jesse Pichel of
Jeffries expected that a ruling of at least 15
percent would have pushed Chinese manufacturers to shift
production to a third party country. That the tariff is
currently twice as high only makes such a move that much
more financially appealing. As the ruling reads, cells
imported into China and turned into modules will not be
subject to the tariff. The likely beneficiary would be
Taiwan, though Pichel warned the new demand itself may
increase the pricing of cells coming out of that
country.
Grunow said Trina, which because of its size has a
well-established global supply chain, is prepared to
“comply with the ruling and get the best price for our
customers.”
Chinese companies may also choose to set up
manufacturing operations close to the American market.
Jinko Solar and Canadian Solar have facilities north of
the border and Suntech has a facility in Arizona.
Mexico, meanwhile, could be a possibility for Chinese
companies looking to build operations capable of serving
the North American market.
However, the
New York Times cited an anonymous Chinese banker as
saying such a shift in production won’t be so easy. The
source told the paper that state-owned banks are
reluctant to continue the heavy lending that has spurred
an industry-wide overcapacity.
Brinser noted that his company will work with federal
officials to ensure that any method Chinese companies
use to avoid the tariffs be through legal means. “We’ll
be monitoring it pretty closely,” he said.
The Political Fallout
Politics have always been at the center of this
debate. Even before SolarWorld officially filed the
complaint, its hometown senator, Ron Wyden, a Democrat,
wrote a letter to President Obama urging legal action
aimed at China’s solar policy. Obama himself, shortly
after the investigation launched, condemned China’s
trading practices and began laying the groundwork for a
new election year push to bring solar manufacturing jobs
back to America.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has long been a vocal
advocate of the need for America’s solar industry to be
supplied predominantly by American-made products. He and
colleague Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., this week
introduced legislation that would exclude Chinese solar
panels that do not meet a domestic requirement from
qualifying for the 30 percent ITC. Chances are the
measure won’t go far, but it does serve to heighten the
rhetoric that continues to heat up between Beijing and
Washington.
According to China Daily, the nation’s Ministry of
Commerce called the ruling “trade protectionism” and
“unjustified.” MOC spokesman Shen Danyang also alleges
that U.S. officials disregarded evidence supplied by the
Chinese companies that would have impacted the dumping
margins.
“The big question now is how the Chinese will
respond,” said Chris Brown, an analyst with Asia
Cleantech Gateway. “I expect to see increased tariffs on
U.S. polysilicon [going into China].”
Pichel agrees, saying such a move may disrupt global
pricing. And the ruling could broaden the dispute to
include Europe. Reports earlier this year indicated that
SolarWorld in Germany was working to drum up industry
support for a European Union-based trade investigation.
But so far, no trade complaint has been filed as the
global solar industry watches to see how the U.S.-China
dispute unfolds.