China rules solar energy, but its industry at home is in trouble

CHANGSHA – Over the past 15 years, China has come to dominate the global market for solar energy.

Nearly every solar panel on the planet is made by a Chinese company. Even the equipment to manufacture solar panels is made almost entirely in China. The country’s solar panel exports, measured by how much power they can produce, jumped another 10 per cent in May over 2023.

But China’s solar panel domestic industry is in upheaval. Wholesale prices plummeted by almost half in 2023 and have fallen another 25 per cent in 2024. Chinese manufacturers are competing for customers by cutting prices far below their costs, and still keep building more factories.

The price slashing has taken a severe toll on China’s solar companies. Stock prices of its five biggest makers of panels and other equipment have halved in the past 12 months.

Since late June, at least seven large Chinese manufacturers have warned that they will announce heavy losses for the first half of 2024.

The turmoil in the solar energy sector amid enormous factory capacity and booming exports highlights how China’s industrial policymaking works.

The government decided 15 years ago to put extensive support behind solar power, and then let the companies claw it out. Beijing has shown a high tolerance for letting firms stumble and even fail in large numbers.

Beijing’s spare-no-expense policies are in particular focus as China doubles down on factory exports to compensate for a slowing domestic economy – drawing criticism from the United States, the European Union and other trading partners who contend that China’s heavy support of its industries is unfair.

China’s Communist Party leadership called on July 21 for further investment in high-tech industries, including solar power.

In his speech last week at the Republican National Convention, former US president Donald Trump called for an end to the Biden administration’s renewable energy programmes, which he labelled a “green new scam”.

The rise and fall of Hunan Sunzone Optoelectronics in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in south-central China, is a case study of how China’s policies work.

Started in 2008, the solar panel manufacturer benefited early on from practically every possible subsidy.

It got 8.9ha of prime downtown land in the heart of the city almost for free. One of China’s biggest state-owned banks arranged a loan at a low interest rate. The Hunan provincial government then agreed to pay most of the interest.

Despite the financial help, Sunzone’s factory now sits empty. A large “Sunzone” sign on the second floor rusts in the swampy heat of Changsha. The only person still working at the site on a recent afternoon, a security guard, said that manufacturing equipment was removed in January and the factory was set to be demolished and turned into office buildings.

Sunzone epitomises how lavish lending from state-owned banks and generous local subsidies have produced manufacturing overcapacity. Solar companies cut costs and prices sharply to maintain market share. That led to a few low-cost survivors while many other competitors were driven out of business in China and around the world.

China’s banks, acting at Beijing’s direction, have lent so much money to the sector for factory construction that the country’s solar factory capacity is roughly double the entire world’s demand.

Sunzone’s 360-employee factory was big when it was built. Within a few years, rivals elsewhere in China were building much larger factories.

Sunzone’s rivals, including Tongwei and Longi Green Energy Technology, gained formidable economies from large-scale production. They have ploughed part of their extra revenue into developing solar panels that are increasingly efficient at converting sunlight into electricity.

Many other factories, like Sunzone’s, quickly become obsolete.

“Enterprises continue to put advanced production capacity into operation to maintain competitiveness,” said China’s National Energy Administration director Zhang Jianhua at a news conference in June. “At the same time, the outdated production capacity is still extensive and needs to be gradually phased out.”

Solar manufacturers across China have been laying off thousands of workers to cut costs – and those workers may be the lucky ones because they qualify for months of severance pay. Other big solar companies have resorted to tactics like giving year-long unpaid vacations or 30 per cent pay cuts for employees who keep their jobs.

Yet some companies say that they are furloughing workers only in preparation for even bigger production pushes in the future.

“We’re saying, ‘Go back to your farm and help with the harvest, and come back in the autumn when the new equipment is ready’,” said Longi group vice-president Zhang Haimeng.

The West is raising barriers to China’s solar panels.

Europe has begun barring their use in government procurement projects unless Chinese companies disclose their subsidies, which they refuse to do.

Partly because of worries about Chinese subsidies, US President Joe Biden in June allowed steep tariffs that had expired to go back into force on solar products imported from South-east Asia that use lots of Chinese components.

And the Department of Commerce has begun trade cases against imported solar panels that could lead to further tariffs.

China’s solar panel manufacturers are resilient. Some of the largest have restarted operations, often with the help of banks and local governments, after collapsing a decade ago.

Mr Zhao Feng, the founder of Sunzone, said he hoped that his company might also recover. A Sunzone shareholder filed a lawsuit in a Hunan court in 2018 to force the company into insolvency following losses, but later withdrew it.

Mr Zhao, who is now in the US, said that he wanted to refocus the company on artificial intelligence and electric cars, the latest favourites of Chinese industrial policy.

“When we want to develop,” he said, “we will ask banks and the government for support.” NYTIMES