One-third of China’s 121 listed solar producers are in the red and more than 50 along the supply chain have filed for bankruptcy this year. The rain and gloomy skies during the SNEC PV Conference – the biggest in China’s solar-panel manufacturing industry – summed up the mood in the market, whose major players congregated in Shanghai earlier this month for the four-day annual event. The scale was noticeably smaller this year. Several leading companies opted out for a variety of reasons, including tight budgets. More tellingly, CEOs from major producers Longi Green Technology and Tongwei – keynote speakers last year – gave it a miss. The weariness is not surprising. The industry, billed as one of China’s three new economic drivers along with electric vehicle and lithium battery manufacturing, is facing a double whammy: producers are swimming in a sea of red amid a price war and supply glut at home, while tariffs are blocking access to export markets.
Prices in every segment of the solar panel supply chain plummeted by 60% to 80% in 2024 from a peak in 2023, according to the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, with 39 of the nation’s 121 listed producers in the red. Losses in the photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing value chain reached USD40 billion, according to Gao Jifan, Chairman of Trina Solar. Including other business lines, the tally was USD60 billion, he said. “Everyone is questioning how deep and prolonged this downturn will be,” Yang Liyou, General Manager of solar-panel maker Jinneng Clean Energy Technology, said at a panel discussion during the conference. “It has not eased. In fact, it’s become deeper and longer than we anticipated.” Shares of Jinko Solar, the world’s top solar panel maker in terms of shipment volume, have declined by nearly 30% in New York this year, bringing the slump to more than 60% from a peak in 2022. Rivals like JA Solar, Tongwei, Trina Solar, Longi, and GCL have slumped by as much as 80% since 2022.
China is the world’s biggest solar-panel producer, commanding 80% of global capacity from material processing to final assembly, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). More than 50 Chinese companies along the solar supply chain have filed for bankruptcy this year, data compiled by market tracker Solarbe showed. China’s solar-panel manufacturers enjoyed a bit of a honeymoon in the first half of this year as developers rushed to complete installations before incentives ended this month under China’s power market reform. The front-loading means the second-half outcome could be dire. Citigroup forecasts project installations to slump by as much as 44% from an estimated 160 GW in the first half. Globally, growth in solar installations is expected to slow to 10% in 2025 from 33% in 2024 and 87% in 2023, according to forecasts by the Washington-based Global Solar Council, which represents the industry at key international forums such as COP and G20. Over the past year, the industry has attempted to reorganize and reform without much success. Attempts to export a way out of the crisis were met with punitive U.S. tariffs, with the Trump Administration fixing the loophole by targeting Chinese factories located in Southeast Asia, the South China Morning Post reports.
