China’s solar industry has entered ‘ice age’, needs state support: GCL founder
- China’s solar sector is experiencing a major shakeout as overall capacity has nearly tripled, while profit margin has declined by around 70 per cent
Beijing needs to urgently intervene and rescue the glut-ridden solar equipment industry in China, which holds 80 per cent of the global manufacturing capacity after years of state subsidies, a leading industry figure said.
The founder of one of China’s largest solar material makers has called for government intervention and industry discipline to help correct the unprecedented downturn in the country’s solar sector, as the price war intensifies amid worsening oversupply.
“The mismatch between supply and demand is severe,” Zhu Gongshan, founder and chairman of GCL Technology and chair of the Asian Photovoltaic Industry Association said at an industry conference in Shanghai on Tuesday. “The sector has entered an ice age.
“China’s photovoltaic industry urgently needs the government’s ‘visible hand’ and the market’s ‘invisible hand’ to work together and make structural adjustments by improving technical standards and market access thresholds.”
China’s solar sector is experiencing a major shakeout driven by excess production capacity, which could force small manufacturers out of the market even as losses pile higher on companies’ books.
In the latest round of industry shakeout, the solar sector’s overall capacity nearly tripled, while profit margin declined by around 70 per cent, according to Zhu.