US holds $1.6 billion clean energy trade advantage over China: Pew
report
Washington (Platts)--6Mar2013/348 pm EST/2048 GMT
Despite concerns that the US may be losing out in its clean energy trade
relationship with China, a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts
found that the US holds a trade surplus of more than $1.6 billion over
the Asian economic powerhouse in solar, wind and energy smart
technologies.
"If you add it all up, the United States does enjoy a $1.63 billion
trade advantage with China, in 2011, for which the most complete data
was available, across the three sectors that we looked at," Phyllis
Cuttino, director of Pew's clean energy program, said during a
conference call
The report was based on data collected over eight months by Bloomberg
New Energy Finance, which looked at data from the US government, its own
databases and a review of financial data released by public companies.
Concerns over a US clean energy trade imbalance with China, spurred
by an influx of cheap Chinese solar panels, have led to tariffs on
imports of those panels into the US.
Despite that, the Pew report found that while China did indeed export
more panels to the US in 2011, the US exported to China more solar cells
-- a component of solar panels -- and the high-tech machinery needed by
the solar industry. Overall, the balance put the US ahead by about $900
million in solar alone. The US exported about $3.7 billion in solar
technology to China, and China exported $2.8 billion to the US.
"If you follow simply the finished goods, so if you follow solar panels,
China has an undeniable advantage right now," said Nathaniel Bullard, a
clean energy and China analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "But if
you look at the full ecosystem and the full value chain for these three
clean energy sectors, the story is very different."
Wind followed a similar pattern, with the US exporting $535 million in
wind-power equipment to China and China exporting $389 million to the
US.
What the report describes as "energy smart technologies" -- electric
vehicles, smart meter components, lithium-ion batteries and LED light
bulbs -- also gave an advantage to the US, with $838 million in exports
to China. In contrast, China exported $267 million in such technologies
to the US.
The differences are driven primarily by a US advantage in innovating new
technologies, even while China maintains nore economic manufacturing,
according to Cuttino.
Although the analysis stems from 2011 data, an initial review of federal
data for 2012 shows that while trade patterns are changing, the overall
US advantage will remain, according to Bullard. Specifically, tariffs
are driving down US imports of solar panels from China, even as they
increase from South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia, he
said.
"I don't think there has been a change in the comparative advantage
necessarily, but there has been a change, driven by policy, in the way
that the money has been flowing," Bullard said.
And while a cyclical downturn in capital equipment investment -- a major
component of US clean energy exports to China -- could mean the US
advantage could be diminished, it will likely bounce back as the next
generation of advanced solar technologies is introduced, according to
Hoil Kim, vice president of GT Advanced Technologies. The Nashua, New
Hampshire-based company supplies about half of the world's capacity of
solar-wafer technology used to produce solar panels worldwide, Kim said.
--Derek Sands,
derek_sands@platts.com
--Edited by Jason Lindquist,
jason_lindquist@platts.com
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