New AD/CVD Petitions Filed on Southeast Asian Solar Cells; Says Circumvention Duties Ineffective

A group of U.S. solar panel producers is seeking new antidumping and countervailing duty orders on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from the same four Southeast Asian countries that Commerce recently found were circumventing AD/CVD on solar cells from China (see 2308180044).

In petitions filed April 24, the Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee said that, despite the circumvention duties being a little over a month away from taking effect after a two-year duty pause (see 2209160065), exporters in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, many of them Chinese-owned and headquartered, have found ways around the tariffs and still represent an existential threat to domestic solar producers.

The two-year moratorium gave “the Chinese-owned solar manufacturers in these countries time to shift their supply chains,” the Alliance for Solar Manufacturing said in a news release. “Companies found to be circumventing the tariffs are not expected to pay tariffs when the moratorium ends in June 2024, because their Southeast Asia-based supply chains mean they are no longer in technical violation as outlined in the circumvention decision.”

“Almost immediately upon initiation of the circumvention inquiries,” producers in four Southeast Asian countries that had been found to be circumventing the China solar cells duties because they were using Chinese inputs, including wafers, “began rapidly shifting their supply chains out of China,” the petition said. “Wafer production in the subject Southeast Asian countries increased quickly.”

“For example, in August 2023, Chinese-headquartered Trina Solar, which also produces in Thailand and Vietnam, started production at its 6.5 GW [crystalline silicon] wafer factory in Vietnam, specifically for use in the solar modules that it exports to the United States,” the petition said.

“The move from the use of Chinese inputs to Southeast Asian-origin inputs by many solar producers in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam means that even producers previously found to be circumventing” the AD/CVD orders on Chinese solar cells “have largely shifted to producing and exporting Southeast Asian-origin” cells and modules, “which will be subject to these investigations.”

The petition said imports of solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have been “skyrocketing,” together accounting for 84% of U.S. solar panel imports in the first quarter of 2023.

“Without relief from solar imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, the U.S. solar manufacturing may not survive,” the petition said.

The petition seeks both antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee is made up of Convalt Energy, First Solar, Hanwha Q CELLS USA, and Mission Solar Energy, and the petition said it's also supported by Meyer Burger (Americas), Rec Silicon and Swift Solar. The petitioners are all solar module producers, and there is no domestic production of solar cells, the petition said.

The proposed scope of the investigation is substantially identical to the scope of the AD/CVD orders on solar cells from China.

The Solar Energy Industries Association and other “clean energy industry groups” said in a news release: “We are deeply concerned the AD/CVD petitions will lead to further market volatility across the U.S. solar and storage industry and create uncertainty at a time when we need effective solutions that support U.S. solar manufacturers. We need constructive actions, like the Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit and other policies, to expand domestic solar manufacturing and deploy clean energy at scale and speed to serve growing electricity demand.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio., said in a statement following the filing of the petition: “It’s clear that China’s cheating is rampant in the solar industry -- the Chinese government will do anything to stop the American solar manufacturing industry before it takes off. China is running the same playbook Ohio steelworkers know all too well, routing their products through other southeast Asian countries to try to get around the rules. The Administration cannot let them get away with it. The ITC and the Commerce Department need to move on these petitions immediately to level the playing field for workers in Ohio’s solar industry.”