EU Imposes Temporary Tariffs On Chinese PV Modules: Industrial Restructuring And Global Game Under Trade Barriers
1. Policy implementation: key nodes from early warning to implementation
On June 16, 2025, the China Trade Relief Information Network issued an emergency warning, and the European Commission officially announced that it would start a temporary tariff mechanism on PV modules originating in China from 0:00 on June 23.
Although the specific tax rate has not yet been announced (in 2013, the EU imposed temporary tariffs of 11.8%-67.9% on China due to anti-dumping investigations, and finally ruled on an anti-dumping duty of up to 47.6%), this measure is regarded as a key move for the EU to implement the Net-Zero Industry Act.
The Net Zero Industrial Act came into effect in April 2024. Its core provisions require that by 2026, 30% of PV modules and 40% of solar cells in the EU market must be produced locally, and public procurement projects must pass the "non-price standard" evaluation system - including 12 indicators such as carbon footprint certification, labor standards review, and intellectual property compliance, which directly raises the threshold for Chinese companies to participate in EU PV power station bidding.
2. The dilemma of local production capacity: a fierce conflict between policy goals and reality
The current European PV manufacturing industry presents a structural imbalance of "weak at both ends and interrupted in the middle": in the polysilicon link, only Germany's Wacker Chemie maintains an annual production capacity of 20,000 tons (less than 1% of China's during the same period), and the silicon wafer and battery link basically rely on imports, and the module production capacity is about 10GW/year (accounting for less than 5% of the global share). According to the European Commission's calculations, the annual demand for PV modules will reach 53GW in 2026 (corresponding to about 45GW of new installed capacity). According to the 30% local supply target, 16GW of production capacity must be achieved, and the gap is as high as 6GW.
Even if the 1.2GW module factory of STMicroelectronics under construction and the 1.5GW expansion project of Solarwatt in Germany are included, the capacity gap is still over 30%.
The policy paradox is that in order to achieve the 42.5% renewable energy share target by 2030, the EU needs to add an average of 40-50GW of PV installed capacity annually from 2025 to 2030, and the high-cost local modules (the current price of European-made modules is 35%-40% higher than that of Chinese products) will directly increase the cost of electricity.
The German Renewable Energy Association (BEE) estimates that if all local components are used, the cost of PV electricity in Germany will rise from 0.06 euros to 0.09 euros, resulting in an increase of 24 billion euros in the cost of achieving the renewable energy target in 2030.
3. The butterfly effect of global supply chain reconstruction
The EU's move triggered a chain reaction: the US Department of Commerce simultaneously launched an upgraded "anti-circumvention" investigation on Southeast Asian re-exported PV products, and plans to include the battery cell production capacity of Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries in the scope of tariff statistics on China; India followed closely and announced a 15% "safeguard tariff" on imported PV components for a period of 2 years.
The global PV supply chain is shifting from "centralized manufacturing in China" to "regional clusters" - in the global PV component production capacity distribution in 2025, China's share will drop from 75% in 2020 to 62%, Southeast Asia's share will increase to 18%, and Europe and the United States will account for a total of 15%.
This reconstruction brings dual challenges: on the one hand, the surge in European PV installation costs may delay energy transformation. According to the Ember Climate Think Tank, if the EU's domestic components can only meet 20% of demand in 2026, its new PV installations that year will be 8GW less than expected, resulting in a 12 million ton gap in carbon emission targets;
On the other hand, China's PV industry faces short-term export pressure - the EU accounted for 23% of China's component exports (about 65GW) in 2024, and temporary tariffs may cause exports to Europe to fall by 15%-20% in 2025, forcing Chinese companies to accelerate their layout in emerging markets such as the Middle East and Africa.