U.S. Photovoltaic Subsidies, Cites Double Standards And Market Disruption

Recently, the United States has frequently accused China's new energy industry of providing a large amount of subsidies, while at the same time implementing exclusive and discriminatory subsidy policies to expand its own production capacity, which is a typical "double standard" behavior and will lead to "overcapacity" in the US photovoltaic industry, impacting the healthy development of the global photovoltaic industry. After the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the planned construction of photovoltaic capacity in the United States has significantly increased. According to the Solar Energy Industry Association of America (SEIA), as of October 2023, there are 25 module production lines, 2 polysilicon suppliers, 9 inverter suppliers, 2 photovoltaic glass suppliers, and 1 backsheet supplier in the United States; There is a total operating module capacity of 13GW and 40000 tons of polycrystalline silicon; Under construction, there is a module capacity of 19.4GW and a battery, silicon wafer, and ingot capacity of 3.3GW each; An additional 45GW of battery production capacity, 80GW of module production capacity, 14GW of ingot production capacity, and 27GW of silicon wafer production capacity have been announced as plans to establish factories. According to Wood Mackenzie, a US consulting firm, according to the currently announced plan, the US photovoltaic module production capacity will exceed 120GW by 2026, which is three times the local photovoltaic installation demand at that time.

The US photovoltaic subsidy policy, represented by the Inflation Reduction Act, disregards multilateral economic and trade rules by using domestic US goods instead of imported goods as a condition for obtaining subsidies, which is a blatant discriminatory policy that violates the obligation of "national treatment". China filed a lawsuit against the relevant subsidy policies in the US Inflation Reduction Act with the World Trade Organization on March 26, 2024. After unsuccessful negotiations with the United States, China applied to the World Trade Organization on July 15th to establish an expert group to review the case. No matter how the packaging is beautified, it cannot change the discriminatory, irregular, and protectionist nature of the US photovoltaic subsidy policy.