L R AS Published on Saturday 10 February 2024 - n° 475 - Categories:Europe
European rules supposed to favour European PV manufacturers
The European Council and Parliament have reached agreement on the rules for resilience auctions. In future, 30% of projects awarded in public tenders will have to meet resilience criteria.
There will be no tariffs or other trade barriers for the time being. This is intended to help manufacturers in relevant energy industries, such as module production, to become more competitive and to diversify the supply chain in the energy sector.
The two institutions have decided that each Member State with a tender volume of more than 6 GW of renewable energy per year must select 30% of the volumes offered according to resilience criteria.
Only 50% of the auction modules in each Member State may be imported from a single country per year. Production should also be more environmentally friendly than the minimum required by international standards.
These measures should "apply nine months after its adoption of the net industry law for both solar and wind energy."
The text indicates that the exact wording of the final agreement was not yet available at the time of publication of the article on 6 February.
PV Magazine of 6 February 2024
Editor's note The difference in approach between the European Union and the United States is glaring: the latter has established budgetary aid for companies to help them develop, as well as customs duties (except for two years) to give companies time to invest and organise themselves within the country.
The European Union is banking on regulation. Set in Brussels without taking into account the Chinese's skill, the regulations will be circumvented immediately: for example, "each Member State with a tender volume of more than 6 GW must select 30% of the volumes offered on the basis of resilience criteria": if we understand correctly, as long as there are not 6 GW, this will not apply.
Applying the rule that only 50% of the modules auctioned in each Member State can be imported from a single country per year, forgets that all the countries of the Far East will be offering their products and the rule will be circumvented.
What can be said about purchases by European company X which are not included in the Member State's purchases!
Once again, the European Union is making decisions, but because of its lack of practical sense, its decisions are useless or inapplicable. It would have been better to impose strict customs duties and give European companies time to prepare for competition rather than establish regulations that will serve no purpose. In any case, this is what we can predict from what we know of the measures that have been decided.
