The U.S. DOC to Increase CVD Tariffs on Imports of Chinese PV

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced that it will increase preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) rates on imports of solar photovoltaic (PV) products from China, due to the discovery of additional subsidies.

New preliminary countervailing duty tariffs will be 3.44 per cent on PV cells from Suntech Power Holdings Company (Wuxi, China) and 5.81 per cent on Trina Solar (Changzhou, China), as well as higher rates for other companies, which are based on rates for Trina and Suntech.

DOC investigators cited discounted electricity to Chinese PV manufacturers, as well as additional grant programs in their decision to raise the tariff rates.

Much higher anti-dumping tariff rates imposed

These rates are preliminary and the DOC will make a final determination on October 9th, 2012. In addition to these countervailing duty tariffs, the DOC has also issued a preliminary ruling calling for anti-dumping tariffs of 31 per cent on leading Chinese PV producers.

Both the anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations apply only to PV cells made in China, and modules that incorporate these cells.

Tariffs a boost to Taiwanese cell manufacturers

While the finding was applauded by the SolarWorld-led Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM), a wide range of voices in the PV industry and several leading industry analysts have come out against the preliminary tariffs, saying that they will damage the US PV market and do little to support American PV manufacturing.

The preliminary tariffs have also caused an increase in PV exports from other Asian nations, most notably Taiwan.

NPD Solarbuzz (San Francisco, California, US) has stated that Taiwan PV cell production is running at full capacity, while Lux Research (Boston, Massachusetts, US) has noted sharp increases`in US PV imports from Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

TrendForce (Taipei City, Taiwan) also reports that Taiwanese silicon wafer and PV cell prices have increased since the ruling.