Heliene, SEG Solar and Canadian Solar have filed a new anti-circumvention inquiry with the US Department of Commerce against Hanwha and other solar cell producers regarding the import of solar cells from South Korea to the US.
This comes a little over a month after a similar petition—filed by a coalition led by The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade (AASMT)—was filed against Toyo Solar and Origin Solar Manufacturing in Ethiopia, reinforcing the US solar industry’s accelerated protectionist stance (subscription required) against non-domestic-made solar products.
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Unlike the previous anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case filed, where Hanwha was part of the coalition with the AASMT, Hanwha finds itself on the other side of the petition. Heliene, SEG Solar and Canadian Solar—styling themselves as the American Manufacturers for ENergy Resilience (AMER)—identified Hanwha as the “leading exporter” of crystalline silicon PV (CSPV) cells from Korea to the US in the inquiry report.
The three solar manufacturers are alleging that by using Chinese wafers, the South Korean cell producers are circumventing the AD/CVD imposed against Chinese crystalline silicon solar cells, whether assembled or not into modules that have been in place since 2012.
Moreover, the inquiry request filed by law firm Lighthill PC, on behalf of AMER, highlights that Korean producers require no domestic research and development (R&D) to complete crystalline silicon (cSI) solar cells using Chinese-origin components.
“Based on available evidence, effectively no ongoing Korean R&D for solar-grade polysilicon, ingot, wafer production exists in Korea because those key CSPV inputs are no longer produced in Korea,” reads the report. “Instead, companies like Hanwha Solutions import ingots and wafers and other key CSPV components from China to produce its cells in Korea.”
Despite directly naming Hanwha and its subsidiary, Hanwha Qcells, or HD Hyundai Energy Solutions, among others, AMER requested the Department of Commerce to conduct a country-wide anti-circumvention inquiry in South Korea.
PV Tech reached out to Hanwha for comments on the alleged anti-circumvention request filed against it and its subsidiaries.
“The case is one of the more interesting cases of AD/CVD to have been put forward recently, and to be honest, one of the least expected. The main cell manufacturer in South Korea that ships to the US is Hanwha QCells, which has made a very significant investment in the US market and has been a petitioner in the majority of the last few AD/CVD cases. They now find themselves becoming the main target of this petition,” explained Moustafa Ramadan, head of PV Tech Market Research.
“Secondly, whereas some Southeast Asian and now some African countries were clear examples of the game of whack-a-mole continuing, South Korea did not seem to be as clear. However, what is clear is the message coming from the US administration, if you want to be in the US you need to manufacture in the US.”
As highlighted by Ramadan, Hanwha Qcells invested more than US$2.5 billion to build a vertically-integrated facility in Georgia, which recently began producing solar cells. Full production—including ingots and wafers—is expected for the third quarter of this year with an annual nameplate capacity of 3.3GW each for ingots, wafers and cells and 3.5GW for modules.
