Suniva, the bankrupt module manufacturer who is the lead petitioner in a U.S. trade complaint in response to what it sees as unfair international competition, has demanded GTM Research retract and amend parts of its reports – released on Monday – that suggested the U.S. market could contract as much as 66% if the trade complaint is brought to a successful conclusion.
According to Suniva, the central assumption on which GTM’s analysis of the complaint is based – that Suniva and its co-petitioner SolarWorld want a US$1.18/watt floor price for modules – is wrong. Instead, the floor price listed in the complaint itself of $0.78/watt is the proper number.
An email from GTM’s Mike Munsell, manager of research marketing, clearly outlined that the report added a $0.40/watt tariff to the $0.78/watt floor price to reach its $1.18 number (emphasis added).
“In our latest report we found that between 2018 and 2022, total U.S. solar installations would fall from 72.5 gigawatts cumulatively to just 36.4 gigawatts under a $0.78 per watt minimum module price scenario,” Munsell’s email read.”Even more dramatic, with a $1.18 per watt minimum price, representing a $0.40 per watt cell tariff on top of a $0.78 per watt minimum module price, cumulative installations would plummet to 25 gigawatts,”
Suniva counters the $0.78/watt price includes the tariff.
“GTM negligently published this assertion without ever contacting the co-petitioners of the trade petition or their counsel,” Suniva said in announcing its demand. “Had GTM followed standard norms of journalistic procedure and asked for comment from the co-petitioners, they would have happily assisted GTM, and GTM could have prevented the foreseeable harm caused to the co-petitioners.”
“This is why Suniva has called upon GTM to retract their report while there still may be time to minimize the harm caused to the co-petitioners,” the complaint continued. “Suniva does not understand why GTM would publish faulty assertions without contacting the co-petitioners.”
GTM’s MJ Shiao, head of Americas research and one of the authors of the report, says GTM stands by its research and will not be retracting the report. The company will be issuing a clarification, however, now that Suniva has clarified that the $0.78/watt floor price includes the tariff.
“In the course of our research, we talked to trade lawyers who are working on the 201 petition,” Shiao said. “They expressed to us that the wording of the complaint was ambiguous and could be interpreted both ways. That’s why we modeled it both ways in our report.”
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Ok- sorry US Solar friends for having to fight with our Castle owning and Rolls Royce driving german Solarworld export and not having any competitive product on the Market in the same time. Import duties imposed by those “subsidies and duty converters into luxury items” did at lot of harm for both US and EU- Market players which a much more serious. But “your” Suniva is even worse in being a Micky Mouse size Manufacturer, unefficient and therefore bankrupt and expecting 78Cent/Wp in a world market where best in class producers (30 times larger then Micky Mouse) already reaching cash cost below 30 Cent/Wp. Mixing these bad jokes with Donald Trump will poison the US market. And from my perspective: No one will give you an extrax penny for freakign solar electricity. Sooner then later Net Metering will shrink and all has the same result: Cheaper then others oder dead.
In Germany the best in class are able to build a 10 MWp size system at appr. 60 US Cent/Wp. I mean a system, not a module (plus EPC Marging 10-15% and 3-5 Cent/Wp for project development). Consider this.
Therefore it is so crazy to read about Suniva`s attacks von GTM – oh my god, I thought EU trade cases are crayz but US is still the country to top it all.