Chinese solar panels are 65% cheaper than those made in the USA

According to Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac), China invested more than $130 billion in the solar industry in 2023, and its share of global polysilicon, silicon wafers, solar cells, and modules capacity will remain above 80% between 2023 and 2026.

WoodMac’s report, How Will Chinese Expansion Impact Global Solar Module Supply Chains? It said the expansion was driven by strong earnings in the polysilicon segment, technology upgrades, and policy support.

Huaiyan Sun, senior consultant at Wood Mackenzie and author of the report, noted: “Despite significant government initiatives to develop local manufacturing in overseas markets, China will continue to dominate the global solar industry supply chain and continue to widen technology and cost gaps with competitors.”.

Wood Mackenzie forecasts that more than one terawatt (TW) of wafer, cell, and module capacity will be online by 2024, meaning China’s manufacturing capacity is sufficient to meet annual global demand for these products through 2032.

Strong government support in other countries has led to increased local production of solar cells, but they are still not price-competitive with Chinese products. According to the report, a module made in China is 50% cheaper than one made in Europe and 65% cheaper than one made in the US.

If we sum up the announced plans of the United States and India to create solar panel production, we get an impressive figure — 200 GW…