U.S. "double reverse" tariffs have not slowed down the fall in PV prices

The United States has imposed "double reverse" tariffs on Chinese PV companies, prompting Chinese solar panel manufacturers to purchase more expensive products elsewhere to evade tax rates, but the prices of renewable energy equipment continue to decline.

The United States believes that China has unfairly supported the photovoltaic industry and that Chinese PV companies have dumped their inventory illegally into the US market.

China's PV manufacturers, such as Suntech Power, Yingli Green Energy, and Artesian Solar, are dissatisfied with this and consider it a threat to this young industry and increase production costs.

It is expected that the installed capacity of photovoltaics in the US market will reach 3 GW in 2012, and Chinese solar panel manufacturers have no plans to withdraw from the US market. Most Chinese manufacturers seek to purchase key solar modules outside mainland China to evade tax rates.

According to the research report of Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM), in May, Chinese PV products dropped to 45%.

According to Michael Potter, chief financial officer of Artus, purchasing photovoltaic cells from Taiwan has been the company's supply chain strategy for many years. All American-made components now consist of slightly more expensive Taiwan-made batteries.

Potter said in an interview: "This is basically going to pass through American consumers. Compared to past prices, it does not seem to cost much, but the price difference certainly exists."

GTM Research predicts that the purchase of Taiwan-made batteries by top Chinese manufacturers will bring 7 cents per watt to cost. However, the cost of solar panels is within 70 cents per watt and continues to decline.

So far, the transfer of production has not caused a sharp drop in the price of photovoltaics. The trend of falling prices can make photovoltaic power generation more attractive to customers, but this will result in a sharp decline in profit for panel makers.

According to Wednesday's PV Insights market analysis report, solar panel prices fell 0.78% last week to 76 cents per watt.

Last year, panel prices plummeted by 50%; this year, panel prices have fallen by about 20%.

No major disruption Robert Petrina, President of Yingli Green Energy America, said that the United States' double tax rate is like a "great disturbance." However, it is expected that there will be no sharp decline in the volume of products sold by the company to the US market.

According to the GTM Research analysis report, nearly half of the solar panels in the US market came from China last year. In 2012, before the United States imposed a "double anti-" tax rate, the market share of China's photovoltaic products still rose.

David Kurzman, a renewable energy expert and manager of Leuthold Weeden Capital Management, believes that in the next two years, Chinese component manufacturers are expected to completely evade tax rates through cooperation with other countries and regions.

Weeden said: "As far as expected results are concerned, tariffs are too little and too late."

Suntech Power said that in the foreseeable future, Suntech will still provide a large number of US tax-free panels.

Mark Kingsley, Trina’s chief commercial officer, said that U.S. tariffs will only speed up the shift from production to the end market.