SolarWorld, which backed the original trade investigation into Chinese solar glass imports, has said that it cannot back the current case with so few European manufacturers still active.
SolarWorld, the petitioner in PV module trade cases in the US and EU, has spoken out against the latest investigation by Brussels into solar glass, saying that it cannot back the current case with so few European manufacturers still active.
The company backed the original trade investigation into Chinese solar glass imports but has said that a decision to reopen the case and potentially revise anti-dumping duties upwards was “absurd”.
Duties of 17.15 to 42.1% were applied to Chinese solar glass manufacturers following a request by EU ProSun Glass, a trade group led by Liechtenstein-based Interfloat.
“When the first [glass] case started there was a legitimate case to be answered but since then 50% of Europe’s glass supply has disappeared,” Milan Nitzschke, president of EU ProSun said. “Now there is mainly one company driving the case and no European supply base for all of the European demand. That makes the new case more than absurd.”
Nitzschke is also vice president of SolarWorld, the module manufacturer that is the driving force behind EU ProSun. The glass case was brought by EU ProSun Glass, a separate trade group.
“The only beneficiary of new tariffs on solar glass are module manufacturers using it tariff-free in China. For everyone else, all it does is drive up the costs. European manufacturers using the Chinese glass would see their costs rise while the same glass in a module produced in China would not be affected.”
Chinese firms accounted for 27% of solar glass supply in 2014 compared to 2.5% in 2010, according to research firm IHS. The company expects the application of the duties to arrest recent price falls and trigger modest increase in cost instead.