The imposition of new trade duties on Chinese modules with components from outside the mainland will not impact US solar deployment in 2014, according to EnergyTrend.
Preliminary anti-subsidy duties of up to 35% were announced in June. They will cover Chinese that have been partially manufactured in other territories such as Taiwan. The preliminary anti-dumping decision is expected to be announced tomorrow, 25 July, with punitive duties widely predicted
“Chinese modules shipped to the US increased month by month from January to May, 2014 and it did not begin to decrease until June,” said Corrine Lin, analyst, EnergyTrend.
“The total export to the US exceeded 2.3GW in 1H14. If taking into consideration the cumulated module capacity of US manufacturers, such as First Solar, SunPower – near 4GW – US will have enough modules to achieve its target installation of 6GW,” she added.
“Therefore, no matter what the US-China anti-dumping preliminary verdict turns out to be, it will not have actual impacts on Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers until next year. Before the result is announced, manufacturers in China and Taiwan can look for strategies to cope with the US decision, manufacturers in Japan and Korea can also find bigger opportunities,” said Lin.
