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Chinese Imports Hurt U.S. Solar Companies, Trade Commission Says

December 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The vote clears the way for additional steps by the commission and the Commerce Department that could result in heavy tariffs on Chinese imports. The Commerce Department had responded to the industry filing last month by agreeing to open an investigation into the complaints.

In theory, some tariffs could begin in January. But a decision could be delayed, experts said.

Chinese officials, angered by the trade complaint, have already vowed to investigate American subsidies to renewable energy. And some American importers of solar panels, and operators of solar power installations, have warned that sanctions against the Chinese could raise the cost of solar energy in the United States.

But Ben Santarris, a spokesman for SolarWorld, of Hillsboro, Ore., the lead company in the complaint, noted Friday that the six members of the International Trade Commission had three options in voting: that there was no harm, that there was a threat of harm or that there was actual harm. Because all six commissioners found actual harm, he said, it was “the highest possible outcome we could get in this admittedly incremental milestone.”

Many steps remain in the case.

For the industry’s complaint to succeed, the Commerce Department will next have to make a preliminary ruling that Chinese panel makers have been “dumping” their products in the United States at prices below the cost of making and marketing them.

The preliminary ruling would impose offsetting tariffs, which the department has initially estimated at 50 to 250 percent, to bring the price of Chinese panels in the American market up to what the Commerce Department deems their fair market value.

The Commerce Department will also assess whether the Chinese solar panels have been subsidized, although this review takes two months longer. The subsidy review could lead to additional tariffs of 100 percent or more if the Commerce Department found in favor of the domestic industry.

A spokesman said on Friday that either or both could be delayed. The department could, though, order importers of the Chinese products to put up cash or bonds in anticipation of a final ruling.

In Friday’s action, the International Trade Commission said it had found a “reasonable indication that a U.S. industry is materially injured” by the import of solar panels from China “that are allegedly subsidized and sold in the United States at less than fair value.”

The slumping price of solar equipment was a factor cited by the Energy Department in assessing the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the solar module manufacturer that the Obama administration provided with a $535 million loan guarantee.

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a6e1f22410b026aeca293908f4ea443e

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

U.S. and China on Brink of Trade War Over Solar Power Industry

November 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The Commerce Department in Washington on Wednesday opened an investigation sought by American manufacturers who accuse the Chinese of “dumping” solar panels into the United States at prices, aided by government subsidies, lower than the cost of making and distributing them.

Anticipating that move, the government-controlled Chinese solar industry has been unusually vitriolic this week. A trade group accused the White House of turning the commercial complaint into “a political farce, which is very likely a publicity show initiated by the Obama administration for the coming election.”

Meanwhile, a new American trade group was formed this week, representing buyers and installers of solar-energy systems. It argues that any new Commerce Department restrictions on Chinese solar panels would slow the adoption of clean energy technology in the United States and could cost thousands of American jobs. Some environmentalists also oppose policies that might slow the adoption of solar energy.

Solar power is a politically charged issue in Washington, in part because of the bankruptcy this summer of a solar panel maker, Solyndra, after it had received more than $500 million in federal loan guarantees.

The use of solar energy in the United States is growing fast, but Chinese solar panel manufacturers have been growing even faster, raising their American market share to more than half now, from almost none five years ago.

By bringing together complex issues like manufacturing policy, job creation and climate change, the solar panel dispute is emerging as the most politically charged trade case in many years, potentially rivaling Detroit’s legal case against Japanese automakers under a related trade statute in 1980.

The solar panel case “is one of those once-in-a-generation cases,” said Alan W. Wolff, a deputy United States trade representative in the Carter administration who is now the chairman of the international trade practice in the Washington office of the Dewey LeBoeuf law firm.

Although solar energy now contributes only about one-tenth of 1 percent of American electricity, the amount of new solar wattage installed in the United States has been growing more than 70 percent a year since 2008, according to GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm in Boston.

Seven American manufacturers filed a legal petition on Oct. 19 seeking the Commerce Department investigation and asking that tariffs of more than 100 percent be imposed on solar panels from China. The filing accused the Chinese industry of using billions of dollars in government subsidies to help gain sales in the American market and dumping panels at very low prices.

Under American trade laws, Wednesday was the deadline for the department to either begin a formal inquiry — unless it judged the case to be groundless — or find that few companies manufacturing panels in the United States actually supported it.

Whatever action the American government might take, it could prove too late to save the American solar panel industry. China, whose government has been a big promoter of green-energy companies, already accounts for three-fifths of the world’s solar panel production, giving it enormous economies of scale.

And it exports 95 percent of its production, much of it to the United States, rather than using it within China. That has helped push wholesale solar panel prices down sharply — to $1 to $1.20 a watt of capacity today, from $1.80 in January, from $3.30 in 2008.

Although plunging prices could speed up the adoption of solar power, the American industry contends the Chinese are simply not playing fair. Besides Solyndra, two other American solar companies that together represented one-sixth of American manufacturing capacity in the sector went bankrupt in August, while four other American solar companies have laid off workers and cut output since spring of last year.

President Obama said in an interview on Nov. 2 with a television reporter from Oregon, the hub of the American solar panel manufacturing industry, that there were “questionable competitive practices coming out of China” in clean energy.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=15c7eb3d195f1f309d5bb0e386cca48c

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Green Column: Around the World on Solar Power Alone

September 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

HONG KONG — Almost a year ago, the Turanor PlanetSolar, a sleek catamaran that bears a resemblance to a giant water beetle, set off from Monaco on a voyage around the globe. Later this month it will arrive in Singapore, having amassed proof that it is possible to traverse the world’s oceans on solar power alone.

The PlanetSolar
is a pioneering experiment. Rather than trying to reproduce the vessel for commercial use, said Raphael Domjan, a Swiss national who set up the project in 2004, the point of the project is to prove that solar technology can do far more than it currently does.

“We want to show to the world what can be done, that modern solar technology has huge economic potential,” Mr. Domjan said recently in a telephone interview. “The idea is to provide an impulse to the industry to consider alternatives, to think about innovative ways to reduce their energy needs.”

Solar panels are, of course, widely used on yachts and powerboats to power on-board appliances, for example. But the PlanetSolar goes much further: It is 100 percent solar-powered and is the first such vessel to attempt a circumnavigation of the globe.

Mr. Domjan — a former ambulance driver, mountain guide and rescue specialist — spent years raising funds before the PlanetSolar finally became a reality last year.

Designed in New Zealand, built in Germany and flying a Swiss flag, the spaceship-like craft is 31 meters, or 102 feet, long and cost $15 million to build. Its top is covered with solar panels — about 500 square meters, or more than 5,300 square feet, of them.

Lithium-ion batteries store energy collected by the panels, allowing the vessel to sail even when there is no sun. Software specifically designed for the craft allows the team to work out the most energy-efficient route and speed, factoring in sunlight, waves and wind.

“What they are doing is brilliant — it gets people to think,” said Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association, one of the largest associations of its kind.

To be sure, for solar technology to have a major effect on marine emissions, it would need to be widely adopted by the tens of thousands of tankers, container ships and bulk carriers that ply the world’s oceans every day. These behemoths, however, are simply too large to be powered exclusively by solar power.

What is more, unlike the PlanetSolar on its current mission, they cannot simply stick to the sunnier parts of the world.

Still, the PlanetSolar’s voyage coincides with a major, and relatively recent, rethinking of the shipping industry about fuel efficiency and the environment.

Global shipping has expanded dramatically in recent decades. Ships now carry 90 percent of the world’s trade and account for about 3 percent of global carbon emissions — equivalent to those of a major national economy, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.

Moreover, the low-grade bunker fuel used on most sea journeys contains sulfur and other pollutants. So any efficiency improvements and moves toward cleaner fuel sources could have a significant bearing on global emissions. And they could be especially welcome in coastal Asian cities like Hong Kong where millions of people live close to some of the busiest ports in the world.

Tighter regulations have helped to kick the industry into action. But the main driver on the fuel front has probably been cost.

“The price of bunker fuel has tripled in the past three years,” said Luis Benito, a marine industry expert and South Korea country manager for Lloyd’s Register, which provides companies in the energy and transport sectors with advice on safety and performance. “For large container ships, fuel can make up more than 50 percent of operating costs, so the maritime industry has been looking very actively at ways to reduce consumption, especially since the global financial crisis.”

In fact, the industry is playing catch-up with the automotive and aircraft sectors, which have spent decades optimizing their efficiency.

“Car engines are far more advanced in terms of technology than ship engines,” said Robert Swan, a British polar explorer and environmental campaigner, who has been taking a solar panel-equipped yacht around the world and also testing biofuels in its engine. “They are well behind — but they are starting to get their act together.”

Much work is being done in improving the design of propellers and hulls and in research on alternative fuels like natural gas, biofuels and nuclear power. Waste-heat recovery systems (in which heat generated by the engines is channeled back into a vessel’s energy supply network, rather than being vented into the atmosphere) are becoming standard.

And some shipping companies, like Maersk Line, have embraced slower speeds as a way of reducing fuel bills and emissions.

“If we slow a ship’s speed by 20 percent, from, say, 23 knots to about 19 knots, you can save up to 40 percent of the fuel cost,” said Tim Smith, who heads Maersk Line’s North Asia operations.

True, customers may balk at longer delivery times. And retrofitting vessels with better technology is expensive. But ships that operate a range of such improvements can be 10 percent more fuel-efficient, Mr. Benito said — perhaps much more.

“People now are far more likely to look at anything — what will get economic payback over the life span of a ship, which can be 25 or 30 years,” Mr. Bowring of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association said. “The priorities have changed with the higher fuel price.”

The use of solar and wind power, through kites that could help propel ships on the open seas, is still the preserve of especially innovative shipbuilders and remains experimental at the moment, Mr. Benito said.

Mr. Domjan of PlanetSolar believes that even if big container ships never end up working entirely on solar power, the technology could be much more actively deployed as part of hybrid solutions, complementing conventional engines.

“The technology is improving very rapidly, and is getting much cheaper. Someone has to be the first to show it works — that’s what we are doing,” he said.

From Singapore, the PlanetSolar will continue its voyage, via Mumbai, Djibouti, Abu Dhabi and the Suez Canal, arriving back in Monaco next May. After that, Mr. Domjan is planning a party, a vacation — and fresh efforts to help promote solar technology.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/business/global/around-the-world-on-solar-power-alone.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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