Over 400 companies have signed a letter to the European Commission calling for an end to trade tariffs on solar goods imported from China.
The minimum import price (MIP) duties were imposed on Chinese solar imports in 2013 in response to a trade dispute centred around concerns that Chinese firms were dumping goods on the European market at low prices in order to gain market share.
European companies believe that the MIP measures have harmed the growth of the European solar energy sector, and could impact Europe’s efforts to attain its climate goals.
“The trade measures have been in place for a long time, they have brought only decline to the European solar sector,” said Sebastian Berry, Board Director of trade group SolarPower Europe. “We need the Commission to remove these measures to allow the sector to grow sustainably again.
“If Europe is serious about leading in renewables, then the solar sector must be allowed to grow again and the European Commission can support this with one easy action – removing the trade measures.”
The 400 companies come from every EU member state and represent all segments of the solar energy value chain, including the steel and chemicals sectors, engineering firms, developers, installers and power companies, SolarPower Europe said in a statement.
The letter is addressed to European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and calls on her to end the trade measures. It says: “The measures are having the unforeseen consequence of negatively impacting the entire European solar value chain to the detriment of jobs, investment and solar deployment in Europe. A policy that was designed to help the few has failed to do so, only serving to harm the very many right across the EU.”
The letter also says that Europe’s share of the global solar sector is shrinking. It reads: “At a time when the European solar market has declined, the sector is in need of measures that will boost demand and not these trade measures which increase cost to our customers, consumers and energy bill payers.”
Signatories of the letter include SSE, Lightsource Renewable Energy, Martifer, Gaelectric, PWC, Martifer, Solarcentury and Fortum.
The letter adds: “The trade measures add to the cost of solar and are contributing to slowing down its deployment. The measures add 100 000s Euros of cost to installations in the region of 10 MW and above and around 1000 Euros to household installations. With tenders for large scale solar being driven by price, the trade measures are ensuring that the potential of solar is not being fulfilled in Europe, contrary to the EU’s wider renewable energy targets and goals.”
