Europe and China’s battle over the solar industry has been going on for two decades. Chinese solar-panel makers are winning with an unassailable lead: they now account for 80 per cent of global production capacity. But the cost of that victory is now looking too high.China dominates the solar panel sector’s entire supply chain. Prices, which are nearly two-thirds lower than US counterparts, have helped it to win market share.
Every year, this price gap widens. There was another 40 per cent price cut in 2023. China’s dominance has come from years of investment. It ploughed over $130bn into the solar industry last year — into production capacity increases. Chinese makers are able to build over 860 gigawatts of solar modules annually.
The biggest advantage Chinese companies have is scale. Due to the sheer size of the domestic market — which added a record 217 gigawatts of solar last year — companies invested heavily in larger scale manufacturing and automation. That is paying off today.