Solar Power Market Share Drops 12.4% Amid Chinese Offensive... Energy Corporation Holds Expert Roundtable

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] In the first half of the year, the market share of domestically produced solar panels remained at 67.4%, down 12.4 percentage points due to the aggressive advances of Chinese solar companies. The Korea Energy Agency held a roundtable meeting to secure the competitiveness of Korea's solar industry.

On the 10th, the Energy Agency announced that it held the "Domestic Solar Industry Competitiveness Diagnosis Expert Roundtable" at JK Biz Center Branch 2 in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

At the roundtable, key policies related to the solar industry, such as the solar carbon certification system introduced in July and the RE100 campaign scheduled for next year, were reviewed along with the domestic and international environment surrounding the solar industry. RE100 is a campaign to convert 100% of electricity consumption to renewable energy by 2050.

According to the Energy Agency, domestic solar installations surpassed 2 gigawatts (GW) for the first time in a half-year period in the first half of this year. If this trend continues, the annual solar installation volume is expected to reach a record high this year.

Accordingly, the installation volume of our industry also increased by 40% year-on-year to 1.4 GW.

However, as Chinese companies increase their global solar market share and aggressively enter the domestic market, concerns have been raised that domestic solar module manufacturers may face greater threats in the future.

According to the Energy Agency, the market share of domestically produced solar panels in the first half of this year was 67.4%, down 12.4 percentage points from 79.8% last year.

This decline is attributed to the reduction of Chinese government solar subsidies and the drop in domestic Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) prices, which increased demand for relatively cheaper Chinese modules.

However, exports by Korean solar companies have somewhat increased. According to the Energy Agency, domestic solar companies exported $573 million worth of modules in the first half of this year, which is 3.3 times the $172 million worth of module imports.

Experts agreed that in a situation where the competitiveness of Korea's solar industry is continuously threatened by large-scale expansions of overseas companies, the outcomes of energy transition policies must provide practical support to the industry.

They emphasized the need to transform the domestic market into a high-efficiency and eco-friendly market through minimum efficiency standards and carbon certification systems, and to continue efforts to enhance the technological competitiveness of the renewable energy industry, such as developing world-leading high-efficiency next-generation solar cell technologies.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.