With the rapid development of the photovoltaic industry in mainland China, the photovoltaic industry has experienced fierce competition and overcapacity. But in any case, the environmental benefits brought by the new energy industry are a huge problem that all countries in the world need to face. It also represents the irreplaceability of the new energy industry. [Dog's Head]
Therefore, in the case of industry leadership, various mainland enterprises have opened an era of involution competition in the world. This volume, not only its own people, made a number of European and American companies panic on the spot. After all, the development of the photovoltaic industry to this point, whether it can still make money is mainly reflected in the cost.
However, the mainland has repeatedly lowered costs, which has directly caused many photovoltaic companies with great potential in the United States and Europe to close down and go bankrupt. Many foreigners are becoming more and more curious, how exactly did China achieve such a low cost?
01
The war on energy
Energy, as the lifeblood of a country, determines whether the country can function normally. Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the national economy has entered an era of rapid development. And almost all the projects in the mainland's heavy and light industries are highly dependent on one energy source, and that is oil.
In the 20 years since China's development took off, the demand for energy has also increased. Since 2008, the mainland's dependence on foreign oil has been as high as 47%. In 2020, the dependence of crude oil on foreign countries was even as high as 73%. This figure means that if the mainland stops importing oil, then 73% of the mainland's development actions will be forced to stop.
But oil is always a manifestation of demand, and what we really lack is the energy that a country must provide for its development. And what is very troublesome is that oil is a highly bound product after being hijacked by the dollar.
Wherever any country in the world wants to use oil, it will inevitably be traded in dollars. The Federal Reserve can help the United States transfer domestic inflation and fiscal crisis through a series of means such as raising interest rates and printing money.
And since the 80s of the last century, the mainland and the United States have already had a game. At that time, the United States brought a large number of imported goods to the mainland through the transfer of industrial chains, in an attempt to let the cheap labor of the mainland people offset the inflation in their countries and further reduce the financial deficit of the US government.
At that time, our country was actually willing to do this, because China at that time could not take out foreign exchange at all. If you want dollars, you have to sell socks to exchange them, which is enough to see how difficult it was for China's economy to start at that time.
In addition, although the products of the United States have overcapacity and cannot be sold in their own countries, in our country, they are necessary for the development of many industries, which can increase our production capacity and obtain technologies that have been eliminated by the United States but are relatively advanced to the mainland. It's a win-win situation. But because of the energy revolution, the world has a new perspective on the future.
02
The energy revolution
To put it bluntly, the energy revolution is a change in which a new type of energy replaces the old energy. In 1997, the United Nations convened the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Japan.
The content of the discussion was that the IPC gathered the world's top experts at the time to publish a 2,000-page climate assessment report involving tens of thousands of scientific papers.
According to their conclusion, by 2100, global temperatures will rise by two degrees due to perceived destruction, global sea levels will rise by up to 77 centimeters, agriculture and infrastructure will be severely affected, ecosystems will be destroyed, hurricanes will be more likely to generate, small organisms will face extinction, and the end of the world seems imminent.
In the face of such a situation, all countries have a hunch that a brand-new energy-saving energy source that can replace oil is the main battlefield in the future.
In 1996, the World Solar Summit was held in Zimbabwe, and photovoltaic power generation technology entered China's field of vision for the first time. At this time, there were still 76.56 million people in China who did not have access to electricity. And these people without electricity are basically concentrated in the northwest region, as well as some scattered remote areas.
Due to the scattered population and the high cost of electricity, how to make them use electricity was the biggest problem at that time. Among them, due to geographical reasons, the proportion of users without electricity in Tibet is as high as 78%. According to the technology at the time, it would take at least a few decades to extend close to the power grid.
However, although the situation in these areas is difficult in the traditional power generation mode, their unique geographical conditions happen to be the most ideal test areas for photovoltaic power generation. Therefore, in order to solve the electricity problem of these users, and also for the development of power generation for the mainland, it was decided to implement photovoltaic technology in these remote areas.
In 1997, the mainland began to implement the China Bright Project, which solved the electricity problem of 8 million poor households without electricity in five years. However, at this time, the United States and Western countries have finally begun to promote the energy transition under the influence of environmental protection trends, and photovoltaic is the key target. Of course, this is also the first PV battle between us and the world.
03
Crazy unwinding
Due to the early layout of the mainland and the willingness to study, our Chinese photovoltaic products have been very well developed. And it has also made certain achievements in the international field and occupied a lot of overseas markets. However, since 2012, the United States has taken the lead in conducting anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on mainland PV products.
The reason is that at this time, China's photovoltaic has become the most powerful existence in the world. At the end of 2012, 8 of the world's top 10 photovoltaic companies were from China, and the three major photovoltaic companies supported by the United States declared bankruptcy. The 30-year monopoly of high profits in the photovoltaic industry in Europe and the United States has been completely broken by the mainland.
Therefore, the unwilling United States launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on the mainland, and imposed a double anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duty of up to 254% on mainland photovoltaic products. On the one hand, it is to destroy the dominant position of the mainland in the world, and on the other hand, it is a respite for the photovoltaic industry of the United States and Europe.
However, at this time, the mainland shifted the photovoltaic industry to the western part of the country, once again opening the second spring of the photovoltaic industry. And with continuous innovation, we have successfully reduced the cost of the photovoltaic industry to the cost of coal. After that, the mainland also launched a new international standard for photovoltaic products, customizing a Chinese standard for the world.
However, our continuous lowering of the cost has made Europe and the United States still extremely competitive under the double anti-dumping tariffs raised by us, which has led to the discovery of the anti-dumping bill by the United States, which is impossible to blockade the mainland at all. If this continues, Europe and the United States will be quickly eliminated from the market.
Therefore, the United States can only silently cancel the anti-dumping bill on the mainland, and this also allows the mainland to return to the European and American markets, and here their local enterprises are crushed. The mainland has once again established the world's first position in the photovoltaic industry.
And now the photovoltaic industry in the United States does not want to develop, but under the shadow of the mainland, they really do not have that ability.
Resources:
[1] Huanqiu.com - 2023.6.28 - How can China's PV continue to lead the world with serious overcapacity and competition from Europe and the United States?
[2] China Development Press -2024.3.21 - Three Enlightenments for Technological Innovation to Promote the Development of the Photovoltaic Industry
[3] The Paper -2022.8.11 - Industry Trend | Driven by science and technology, China's photovoltaic rise in the past ten years