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By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON – The United States on Wednesday set steep final duties on billions of dollars of solar energy products from China, but turned down a request from lawmakers and U.S. manufacturers to expand the scope of its order.
Chinese solar manufacturers criticized the decision, adding more heat to the U.S.-China trade relationship following a congressional panel report on Monday urging American companies not to do business with two Chinese telecommunications companies because of security concerns.
"Unilateral trade barriers will not make any one company more competitive, but will make solar less competitive against other forms of electricity generation," said E.L. "Mick" McDaniel, managing director of Suntech America, a division of one of China's biggest solar manufacturers.
The Commerce Department said Chinese companies were "dumping" solar cells and panels in the United States at prices 18.32 percent to 249.96 percent below fair value, although some individual companies received lower anti-dumping duty rates than in a preliminary decision earlier this year.
The department also set additional countervailing duties ranging from 14.78 to 15.97 percent to combat Chinese government subsidies, significantly higher than preliminary levels.
The United States imported about $3.1 billion worth of solar cells and panels from China in 2011, although that figure contains some product not covered by the investigation.
In a related decision that disappointed U.S. producers and cheered U.S. companies that install solar panels, the department turned down pleas to expand the scope of its order to include Chinese panels (or modules) made with non-Chinese solar cells.
Timothy Brightbill, outside attorney for SolarWorld Industries Americas, the driving force behind the U.S. case, said the company would continue to aggressively pursue that issue in the hopes of a more favorable ruling.
"In our view, all Chinese cells and all Chinese modules are dumped and subsidized," Brightbill said
SolarWorld is worried the department's current stance on the issue will encourage Chinese solar panel producers to move cell production to nearby countries to avoid U.S. duties, he said.
But Jigar Shah, president of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, which includes Chinese and U.S. companies that oppose SolarWorld's case, said including panels with non-Chinese cells in the order would have "created a lot more chaos."