The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) recently issued a memo providing important clarifications regarding its anti-circumvention investigations against solar cell and module manufacturers in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, including two key points:
- Wafers produced outside China using polysilicon from China are not subject to the investigation;
- In the case of preliminary or final determination, the tariff rate imposed on any country under investigation will be equal to the company-specific rate of the Chinese manufacturer and/or exporter that is circumvented in the first place.
The first point of clarification shows that as long as manufacturers use non-Chinese silicon wafers in their products, even if the silicon wafers are sourced from polysilicon from China, it is not affected; the second point is quite clear how the tariffs will be It was levied and what the tax rate was, which was a major unknown until this clarification.
However, the clarification apparently continued the original intention of the previous investigation into imported solar cells and modules, and did not exclude domestically produced silicon wafers from the investigation. In a statement from the American Clean Energy Council (ACP), the memo “continues the market turmoil that is currently killing the U.S. solar industry.”
Because the crux of the issue is not whether the non-China-produced solar silicon wafers are subject to investigation, but that there are basically no silicon wafers not produced in China in the world. In the 2021 global photovoltaic industry chain market share statistics released by IHS, silicon wafers produced in mainland China accounted for more than 95% of the global supply.
In March 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed that silicon wafers from China are not subject to U.S. double-reverse restrictions. Therefore, no matter whether the silicon wafers are produced in China or not, there is no such thing as evasion of double anti-tariff duties, at least “solar wafer manufacturing outside China” itself should not fall within the scope of anti-circumvention investigations.
But nonetheless, until the Commerce Department clarified this, some U.S.-based manufacturers expressed “concerns about whether imported silicon wafers would be affected by the investigation.” Canadian photovoltaic manufacturer Silfab Solar recently announced that it has suspended plans to invest in building a battery plant in the southeastern United States.
This clarification from the US Department of Commerce, on the contrary, has caused another question:
- Emphasizing that non-Chinese-made silicon wafers, then Chinese-made silicon wafers that were originally excluded from the anti-China PV system are also within the scope of investigation this time?
- If the use of non-Chinese polysilicon and silicon wafers, the cells and modules produced in the four Southeast Asian countries were not included in the list of Chinese photovoltaics, is this also within the scope of the investigation?
According to the survey, JinkoSolar’s 7 GW silicon wafer manufacturing in Vietnam will soon be put into production. It was previously reported that JinkoSolar and WACKER have reached a long supply order for overseas polysilicon. If these silicon wafers are not included in the investigation, they will use The crystalline silicon cells and modules produced by these wafers were affected by the investigation and were subject to tariffs. Isn’t that the implementation of photovoltaic double-reverse in Southeast Asian countries?
Because the US Department of Commerce first rejected an anti-circumvention investigation petition last year on the grounds that it “cannot accept anonymity” and “can only target countries, not companies.” If it is aimed at Southeast Asian countries and imposes double-reverse tariffs on cells and modules produced by non-Chinese crystalline silicon and silicon wafers in these countries, isn’t that a prelude to the US’s implementation of double-reverse tariffs on global solar cells and modules?
“Global Photovoltaic” believes that even if the result of the anti-circumvention investigation is to impose double anti-duty tariffs on the four Southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia), it will not protect the domestic manufacturing in the United States that Auxin Solar hopes, because it will soon be in India. Production capacity for silicon wafers, cells and modules will be established.
It is reported that 22 senators and two governors in the United States have formally called on the Commerce Department to make a preliminary decision to withdraw the investigation as soon as possible.
