The group of 30 MEPs cited cybersecurity concerns in an open letter to executive vice president of the commission, Henna Virkkunen, and commissioner for energy and housing, Dan Jørgensen. They called for “immediate and binding measures,” to restrict “high-risk” solar inverter vendors, as reported by our colleagues at PV Tech last November.
It was later confirmed that the rules extend to the bidirectional power conversion system (PCS) inverters used in battery energy storage system (BESS) projects. While not an outright ban on Chinese inverters being used in EU countries at this stage, it will nonetheless be applicable to many projects, including those being supported by Recovery and Resiliency facility grants and loans for economic reconstruction.
‘Re-engineering, diversification of supply chains may be required’
Fluence’s Lars Stephan said the impact of the ban is being felt more greatly in solar than in BESS: “Part of it is that in the solar side we have much stronger deployment of string inverters which are more dominated by Chinese suppliers where in the battery space central inverters have a larger market share. And for central inverters there’s European suppliers or Western suppliers that have a stronger market share.”
