Imports

A binational integrated solar industry project, announced just over a year ago, aims to build a vertically integrated solar manufacturing industry along the border between Brazil and Paraguay. But the project is now on hold pending an update and reassessment by its new managers.

First-quarter figures from German engineering association the VDMA showed that, while orders picked up after a slow end to last year, almost all PV production equipment produced in the country is shipped abroad, with China the leading destination.

From cheer to gloom, the Indian solar industry has had mixed reactions to the Supreme Court’s interim order lifting the stay on the imposition of a 25% safeguard duty on imported solar cells and modules.

The two-year period of the recommended safeguard duty is very short, discouraging any investment in setting up new solar manufacturing capacity, say analysts and companies pv magazine spoke to. At the same time, for solar project developers, the duty will impact tariffs to the tune of 12-15%, posing an immediate threat to viability of projects under execution, they add.

More than half of all Chinese solar shipments in March this year went to India, while emerging countries alone now account for 60% of China’s PV exports, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance 3Q Frontier Power Market Outlook.

The value of the country’s solar imports and exports hit US$1.22 billion (R83.1 billion) from the start of the current fiscal year in April to the end of October 2016, up nearly $1 billion from the same period a year earlier, according to Mercom Capital.