As of 2025, China’s solar factories had enough capacity to cover the estimated global demand this year nearly twice over, even after taking into account the Iran war impact in its demand forecast, Morningstar estimates.
There are unemployed people and high energy costs. All modules could be installed and the energy be used. What’s the bottleneck that not all modules are used?
The fact that China is capitalist and it’s questionable whether they get a good return on investment. They can’t reliably capture the wealth created by getting modules to people that need them, so they don’t do it.
The same as with the US and EU and their massive surplus food production while millions are expected to starve to death this year.
That would be true in a free market but the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy actually incentivises over-production (it’s supposed to protect rural lifestyles). Dumping food abroad (i.e. at below market prices) then disincentivises domestic production there. It’s long overdue reform.
In the US at least, there’s huge, decades-old tariffs on Chinese solar panels. The rest is red tape of varying importance (engineering, land use, permitting, legal and financial agreements, community buy-in, interconnection queues, etc.) I’d guess it takes between 3-7 years to conceptualize a solar plant and getting it operational.
There are unemployed people and high energy costs. All modules could be installed and the energy be used. What’s the bottleneck that not all modules are used?
The fact that China is capitalist and it’s questionable whether they get a good return on investment. They can’t reliably capture the wealth created by getting modules to people that need them, so they don’t do it.
The same as with the US and EU and their massive surplus food production while millions are expected to starve to death this year.
If you offer to buy the food I am sure they will sell. People starve because they can’t offer money.
That would be true in a free market but the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy actually incentivises over-production (it’s supposed to protect rural lifestyles). Dumping food abroad (i.e. at below market prices) then disincentivises domestic production there. It’s long overdue reform.
In the US at least, there’s huge, decades-old tariffs on Chinese solar panels. The rest is red tape of varying importance (engineering, land use, permitting, legal and financial agreements, community buy-in, interconnection queues, etc.) I’d guess it takes between 3-7 years to conceptualize a solar plant and getting it operational.