Chinese solar companies are paying a high price for victory

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Europe and China’s battle over the solar industry has been going on for two decades. Chinese solar-panel makers are winning with an unassailable lead: they now account for 80 per cent of global production capacity. But the cost of that victory is now looking too high.

China dominates the solar panel sector’s entire supply chain. Prices, which are nearly two-thirds lower than US counterparts, have helped it to win market share.

Every year, this price gap widens. There was another 40 per cent price cut in 2023. China’s dominance has come from years of investment. It ploughed over $130bn into the solar industry last year — into production capacity increases. Chinese makers are able to build over 860 gigawatts of solar modules annually.

The biggest advantage Chinese companies have is scale. Due to the sheer size of the domestic market — which added a record 217 gigawatts of solar last year — companies invested heavily in larger scale manufacturing and automation. That is paying off today.

Another 600 gigawatts of annual capacity is expected to start operations this year. That would be enough to cover the world’s total demand through 2032, according to energy research group Wood Mackenzie.

Clearly, the fact that there is now more than enough affordable supply of solar products is good news for the environment and global efforts to shift to cleaner forms of energy production. China was the main driving force behind the 50 per cent increase in global renewable electricity generation capacity last year.

But the problem is the pace of growth has been much too fast. Even its vast domestic market cannot soak up that excess capacity. The weak stock performance of Chinese solar cell manufacturers reflects that mismatch. Longi Green Energy Technology, JA Solar Technology and Trina Solar are down more than 50 per cent in the past year. Longi, China’s largest business in the sector which has grown to become the world’s second most valuable solar energy group, trades at 18 times forward earnings. That is less than half the valuation of smaller US peers. Operating margins have halved over the past four years.

The European Commission has started probes into bids by Chinese firms for projects in the region. The EU’s solar industry has blamed a flood of Chinese imports for losses and plant closures by several European panel makers. With that market looking increasingly unlikely to provide the growth Chinese makers need, the forecast looks decidedly cloudy.

june.yoon@ft.com