Why China Is Dominating the Solar Industry

[FarCenter]

Between 2008 and 2013, China’s fledgling solar-electric panel industry dropped world prices by 80 percent, a stunning achievement in a fiercely competitive high-tech market. China had leapfrogged from nursing a tiny, rural-oriented solar program in the 1990s to become the globe’s leader in what may soon be the world’s largest renewable energy source.

“They fundamentally changed the economics of solar all over the world,” said Amit Ronen, director of the Solar Institute of George Washington University, one of many scholars following the intense competition in the emerging $100 billion industry that supports the world’s growing solar energy demands.

China’s move eclipsed the leadership of the U.S. solar industry, which invented the technology, still holds many of the world’s patents and led the industry for more than three decades. Just how China accomplished that and why it did is still a matter of concern and debate among U.S. experts.

One clear result is that the U.S. solar industry was hit hard by plunging prices and can no longer supply more than a third of rapidly growing U.S. appetite for solar panels, according to a recent Department of Energy report exploring “opportunities and challenges” of solar manufacturing.

China’s new dominance of nearly all aspects of solar use and manufacturing—markets that are predicted to expand by 13 percent a year, according to the report—came through a “unique, complex and interdependent set of circumstances” that is not likely to be repeated.

But if the United States innovates, cuts costs and nurtures newer technologies, it might emerge as the world’s second largest solar panel manufacturer by 2020, the report concludes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-china-is-dominating-the-solar-industry/

[Achilleaze]

1. Starting with Republican Ronald Reagan ripping the solar panels off the White House roof

Republicans have worked diligently to keep the USA dependent on the gross, climate-destabilizing, massively polluting oil economy.

Now with XXXXXXon billionaire Rex Tillerson (R) piloting the State Department - and other "Drill Baby Drill" Republican whackjobs filling key Administration jobs for Comrade Casino (R) and his Evil Empire Cronies - we can be sure that clean, renewable health promoting and democratic solar technologies will continue to be given short shrift.

Photo: Democratic President Jimmy Carter had the wisdom and foresight to install solar panels on the White House roof, modeling appropriate, sensible investment in clean, stable energy that would allow America to steer clear of OIL Wars, Inc. (R). But as soon as Republican's captured the Presidency with Ronald Reagan, they ripped the panels off and buried them in back of a freaking warehouse somewhere.

[Cha]

8. reagun.. such vision. Then there's President Carter

who is still kicking in service to others.

[jberryhill]

2. They can dump their solvents and other toxic waste, too

Or did someone think that these things are made by some "green" process.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5650

"Many of the solar panels that now adorn European and American rooftops have left behind a legacy of toxic pollution in Chinese villages and farmlands."

[DetlefK]

3. Because China isn't a free market economy and has huge government-subsidies everywhere.

More than 90% of the chinese economy is controlled by the chinese government.

In China, the purpose of a corporation is not to make profit. The purpose is to serve interests of the chinese government. (One such purpose is providing jobs, to keep unemployment artificially low and prevent civil unrest.) And if a chinese corporation is going bankrupt while serving the interests of the chinese government, then BY GOD they will pump money into the corporation until it stays alive.



That's exactly what happened with solar in China. Everywhere else, solar companies are dying off and the market is split up among the few survivors who turned out to be strong enough. But chinese solar companies don't have the pressure of a free market. They aren't going bankrupt because the chinese government is propping them up because they have an inherent geopolitical, strategic value.

That's why solar is bigger in China than in the US.

[FarCenter]

6. In the US a lot of subsidies were pumped into thin-film science experiments

Meanwhile, China cost-reduced and scaled up well-known silicon solar cell manufacture and used low-cost labor to do the manufacture and assembly of silicon solar cells into panels.

The US went from ill-fated attempts to manufacture solar panels to thousands of fly-by-night solar panel installation companies, who don't have a vested interest in reliability or efficiency over the long term.

[DetlefK]

7. That's just a quality-vs-quantity issue.

China is focusing on known technologies and wants to make them cheaper.

This thin-film stuff is next-generation solar cells. Organic Photovoltaics in maybe 10 years and Nanoparticle Photovoltaics in maybe 20-30.
With thin-film technologies you can build solar-cells you can look through. Every window could be a solar-cell.

(You can also do bendable electronics.)

[FarCenter]

9. 9 out of 10 immature technologies never mature

History is replete with stories of the next big thing that would replace the previous technologies.

In solar cells, at most you can hope for about a doubling of the efficiency of energy capture and conversion. Therefore, to supplant silicon, you need to make them a bit more efficient and a lot cheaper to manufacture.

But even then, there is a lot of expense in the manufacture of the panel components in which the cells are assembled, not to mention shipping, merchandising, installation, etc.

So a new technology that is a little better and a little cheaper will not supplant silicon cells.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. A couple years ago, Chinese panels were so sub-grade, many business owners were imprisoned, died.

.


Chinese firms were building sub-grade solar panels on the world market, that will fail in a few years.


The Chinese government was so pissed, it took over most of the firms and used the inventory to install domestic solar farms, since they did not want that shit exported anymore. It was during this time that the solar industry got pounded by the flood of these cheap and shitty panels. Folks who flocked to them are going to get fucked in a couple of years. To compound matters, one of the best panel firms was BP, who got hit with the Gulf platform issue when their solar side was just starting to take off.

On top of that, many of these solar business owners were imprisoned, executed or committed suicide.


One other thing to think about is that many of the solar patents were bought by Goldman as investment vehicles. This severely crippled US solar industry's profits.



.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. Prices plunged because the Chinese deliberately drove them down.

State-controlled industries can afford to operate at a loss. They sell solar panels at well below the market value and leave privately owned businesses unable to compete. After a few years, China's got the solar market cornered and can start raising prices to make the industry more profitable.