China has been selling solar panels at a loss because they wanted to scale their industry. They actually sell them below cost and subsidize the production.
The second big reason that they are cheaper is that they use coal and pollute more in the manufacturing process. If they produced panels with as little pollution as a western manufacturing company, the cost would be 10X higher.
In these huge solar panel plants, less than 1% of the current power inputs into the process is rewable, and there are no plans to make it renewable for at least the next 40 years… As in, all these long range power infrastructure investments in China are in coal and fossil fuels for this manufacturing sector.
China has been selling solar panels at a loss because they wanted to scale their industry. They actually sell them below cost and subsidize the production.
The second big reason that they are cheaper is that they use coal and pollute more in the manufacturing process. If they produced panels with as little pollution as a western manufacturing company, the cost would be 10X higher.
In these huge solar panel plants, less than 1% of the current power inputs into the process is rewable, and there are no plans to make it renewable for at least the next 40 years… As in, all these long range power infrastructure investments in China are in coal and fossil fuels for this manufacturing sector.