Canadian Solar, SEG Solar and Heliene USA have filed a petition alleging that Korean solar cell manufacturers (most notably Hanwha Q CELLS) are performing only “minor or insignificant” processing of Chinese solar materials made into cells they import to the United States.
A group of American solar manufacturers has filed a petition with the United States Department of Commerce requesting an anti-circumvention inquiry into companies that import solar materials from South Korea.
The group, calling itself American Manufacturers for Energy Resilience (AMER), consists of three members: Jeffersonville PV Cells Corporation (a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Canadian Solar), SEG Manufacturing Inc. and Heliene USA Inc.
The companies are asking the Commerce department to rule that crystalline-silicon photovoltaic (CSPV) cells imported from South Korea that use Chinese-origin components are circumventing existing antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) orders on solar products from China.
The petition specifically focuses on the effects of Hanwha Q CELLS’s production of CSPV materials in Korea, noting that the company no longer has an in-country source for upstream materials like raw polysilicon, ingots and wafers, and instead gets these materials from Chinese suppliers.
