The European commission recently announced they plan to impose import taxes on solar panels manufactured in China. This is due to the manufacturers being unfairly subsidised by the Chinese government, enabling them to flood the European market with cheap panels that European companies couldn’t compete with. Although this did drive the price of panels right down, it created an unfair and unsustainable market.
Since the announcement of the anti-dumping tax, there have been widespread concerns about panel shortages. While some wholesalers have announced many Chinese manufacturers have stopped or reduced their supply into Europe, panels manufactured in the USA and Europe have not been affected. However, due to the reduction in supply from China, there maybe short term effects on overall availability as European manufacturers ramp up production to meet demand. This also probably means that panel prices have now bottomed out, and could start rising to reflect a real, rather than artificial market price.
Our advice on panel availability would be “don’t panic”, and that the introduction of the anti-dumping tax will be of great benefit to the industry, bringing an increased demand for more locally manufactured panels with a lower carbon payback, and a higher quality of manufacture.
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