Photovoltaic companies keen to build factories overseas

“The export of PV products through overseas factories and OEMs is not within the scope of the China-EU price commitment agreement.” Yesterday (August 13th), an insider of a domestic photovoltaic company revealed to reporters.

In order to prevent malicious acts, the European Commission intends to strengthen the supervision of the acts of Chinese PV companies through the malicious evasion of the construction of overseas bases.

Meng Xianji, deputy director of the China Renewable Energy Society, believes that many companies have the idea of ​​establishing factories overseas. However, there are not many successful cases. There are great risks in overseas factories and require a long investment time.

Overseas factories can avoid price commitments
From August 6, 94 domestic PV companies can enjoy anti-dumping duties on exports of silicon wafers, batteries and components to the EU according to the price commitment agreement. The condition is that the price of PV modules exported from China to Europe should not be lower than 0.56 euros per watt, and the total amount per year must not exceed 7 GW.

According to the above-mentioned insiders, the price commitment agreement was first seen in Sino-European trade. For the Ministry of Commerce and the Electrical and Mechanical Commerce Association, it was a major political negotiation victory; for domestic photovoltaic companies, the significance was not significant at 0.56. The price of the euro is hard for Chinese companies to sell.

It is understood that at present, the price of PV modules exported from China to the European Union is 0.52 Euro to 0.54 Euro, while the price of exports to the European Union in Southeast Asia is only around 0.48 Euro.

"The 0.56 euro gives Chinese companies no competitive advantage. Only when there is a gap in demand in the EU market and production capacity in other regions cannot be supplied, will the products of a small number of Chinese companies be purchased. For most Chinese companies, quotas are actually 'insignificant'. ”

The price and quota in this commitment agreement are not changed. According to the latest news, the market situation has changed in May and June of this year. The minimum prices and export quotas that China needs to implement will fluctuate according to market conditions.

According to the latest documents, Chinese manufacturers that transfer photovoltaic production facilities overseas will also be subject to supervision by the European Commission. The EU will require such companies to explain the purpose of transferring production. Companies need to prove that they have enough incentives to trade in production. If the company's behavior is obviously to circumvent the price commitment limit for export to the EU, it will be considered as a violation of the price commitment agreement.

"This is mainly to prevent malicious circumvention." The insiders of the company said, "For example, some companies ship domestically produced laminates to overseas factories, put them on the shelves and become sellable components, and laminates are almost This is the finished product, which accounts for more than 95% of the cost of the components. Since then, the cost of components is not overseas costs. It is actually domestic costs. It is only framed overseas and the price is clearly lower than 0.56 euros."

The Central European price commitment refers to the price of insurance and freight (CIF). The Electromechanical Chamber of Commerce monitors the implementation of price commitments and submits quarterly reports to the European Commission. In addition, the European branch of the domestic photovoltaic company will also be levied an additional “operational” fee when it resells its imported Chinese components, that is, a 5% “operational” fee will be charged on the basis of a minimum of 0.56 euros per watt.

“We are very careful when we talk about orders with EU customers and we are concerned about violations.” Another insider said, “Now the same EU customer cannot purchase components produced by the same company and their overseas OEMs or components produced by overseas factories. ”

Overseas construction is much less

Prior to this, the European Union launched a "double counter" investigation on China's photovoltaic products and the United States ruled that it imposes high tariffs on Chinese PV products. Many companies have said that they would evade trade barriers by setting up factories overseas.

The insiders of the above-mentioned companies believe that although there are certain costs for overseas plant construction, they will not reach the cost of 0.56 euros. Previously, the cost of domestic sales of solar PV modules to the EU was 0.49 euros to 0.50 euros, while the cost of building overseas plants was 0.02 euros higher than that of the domestic ones.

Up to now, domestic photovoltaic companies have done more to build factories overseas. Only CLP, Wuxi Suntech, and Artes have factories overseas.

“We have no overseas factories, mainly through Indian, Polish, South African and other subcontractors, with a total capacity of 600 megawatts to 700 megawatts. The cost of building factories abroad is high, and it is convenient for OEMs to enter and exit.” Say.

“The domestic enterprises’ technological advantages are not obvious, and overseas human resources are only relatively low in Africa and Southeast Asia. In addition, overseas factories or OEMs have not changed the industry’s dependence on exports and the idea of ​​relying on scale competition. Now the state encourages the development of domestic markets. It is necessary to further 'go global' on the basis of doing a good job in the country and rely on technological innovation to determine its advantages," said Meng Xianjun.