From North America To Europe, Is The Photovoltaic Market About To Change?

Source: Gantanhao Technology

Trump's election will have a major impact on many industries, including photovoltaic new energy. Judging from the specific actions of some companies, these concerns are gradually coming true, and some chain reactions are even beyond expectations.

When Chinese photovoltaic companies gave up setting up factories in the United States amid the geopolitical storm, even Europe, led by Germany, the overseas market base of photovoltaic new energy, is experiencing some subtle changes.

In addition to the Middle East, the globalization of photovoltaic companies has encountered unprecedented tests. From North America to Europe, an invisible curtain is slowly falling.

Today, the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) officially opened in Baku, Azerbaijan. This may be the least noticeable United Nations Climate Change Conference in recent years. Those who are most concerned about environmental changes did not pay attention to this matter, let alone talk about it.

People seem to still be stuck in the turmoil of Trump's return. On November 7, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the EU's climate monitoring agency, announced that temperature data for the first 10 months of 2024 showed that this year will be the hottest year since records began in 1850.

A year ago, the World Meteorological Organization released a provisional version of the "2023 Global Climate Status Report" on November 30, 2023, announcing that 2023 was "the hottest year in human history on record." The United Nations warned that the current carbon reduction efforts of countries around the world are actually unable to curb global warming within 1.5°C.

Trump's return casts a shadow over the global summit. He has made it clear that he will withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as he returns to the White House, increase oil and gas production in the United States, and reduce the United States' commitment to carbon reduction.

Just a year ago, at the COP28 conference held in Dubai, UAE, more than 200 countries, including the United States, reached an unprecedented agreement to stop using coal, oil and natural gas in order to avoid the worst climate disasters.

US Vice President Harris attended COP28, and the theme of her speech was "Accelerating a just, equitable and orderly energy transition". The promises made by the United States at COP28 are likely to become a piece of waste paper during Trump's second term.

Compared with last year, this year's conference was a bit deserted - many leaders of countries gave up the summit, and the outgoing US President Biden did not plan to go to Baku. The United States only sent a delegation led by John D. Podesta, the president's senior adviser on international climate policy.

German Chancellor Scholz, who participated in COP27 and COP28, did not attend COP29 this time. There is a reason for Scholz's absence.

Most photovoltaic companies did not have high expectations for the US market.

However, there is more disturbing news - Europe has changed. Germany's political situation has been turbulent recently, which is likely to have an adverse impact on photovoltaic new energy.

On November 6, just a few hours after Trump's election, a major event occurred in the usually stable German political arena - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the dismissal of Finance Minister Christian Lindner, saying "this is to prevent our country from being harmed."

Lindner's dismissal led to the resignation of all ministers of the Free Democratic Party, and the ruling coalition of the Social Democratic Party (Scholz), the Green Party (Robert Habeck) and the Free Democratic Party (Lindner) was declared dissolved.

Under political and public pressure, Chancellor Scholz said on Sunday (November 10) that he was willing to hold a confidence vote before Christmas. The move is seen as paving the way for early elections.

Prior to this, Germany's political situation was very stable, with power mainly rotating between the Social Democratic Party and its conservative rival Christian Democratic Union. Germany's previous leader Angela Merkel was in power for 16 years and always maintained stability on the European stage, even as other leaders came and went. During the Merkel era, relations with Trump were notoriously tense.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has big problems economically, and last year the economy shrank for the first time since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic.

In the past five years, the German economy has grown by only 0.2%, compared with 4.6% in the 20 countries of the eurozone, 4.1% in France and 5.5% in Italy.

The reasons for Germany's economic stagnation are varied. Germany's energy-intensive companies have been hit by the lingering impact of the energy crisis caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Germany also has many structural problems, including high labor costs, a rapidly aging population, cumbersome bureaucracy and outdated infrastructure.

In addition, Germany faces competition from Chinese companies in the manufacture of some of its main exports, which has hit its auto industry. Volkswagen, Germany's largest manufacturer, is considering closing its domestic factories for the first time, ending its 87-year history.

The key is, who is likely to succeed Scholz?

According to current polls, Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is likely to become Germany's next chancellor. Merz threatened that unless Scholz agreed to a vote of confidence in the coming days, he would refuse conservative support for all legislation promoted by the current government - a move that would effectively paralyze the German government.

Compared with photovoltaic wind power, the conservative Christian Democratic Union is actually more supportive of nuclear energy. The party's position has changed somewhat after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011. During the Chancellor Merkel period, it was directly announced that Germany would no longer use nuclear energy. The last reactor in Germany was finally closed in March 2023.

However, the party's position has changed again, calling for the construction of new reactors. Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union, once said that the closure of the last batch of reactors was "a dark day for Germany." Merz has been calling for the country to restart the three recently closed power plants for climate protection and rising oil and gas prices.

Merz said Germany should not rely "unilaterally" on wind and solar energy for energy supply, but should use all possible energy sources.

"I even believe that if we do it right, one day we can remove wind turbines because they are ugly and do not fit in with the landscape," said the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician.

He said on a political talk show on the German TV Two (ZDF) public broadcaster that wind energy "is a transitional technology" but did not reveal specific details about when he thought the wind turbines would be removed.

Compared with photovoltaic wind power, Merz prefers to bet on controlled nuclear fusion.

In addition to Merz, various parties have begun campaigning for early elections. Germany's current Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced last Friday that he intends to run for chancellor as the top candidate of the Green Party.

According to current opinion polls, Habeck has little chance of winning, but the Green Party may join the next ruling coalition as a junior partner.

Habeck's attitude towards Chinese new energy companies is not friendly. A typical incident is that he expressed "concern" about MINGYANG SMART ENERGY's participation in Germany's wind power project for so-called "data security" reasons. This directly led to the EU expanding its anti-subsidy investigation against MINGYANG SMART ENERGY, which in turn led to the complete failure of this 270MW German wind turbine order.

Note: Most of the articles reprinted on this site are collected from the Internet. The copyright of the articles belongs to the original authors and the original sources. The views in the articles are for sharing and communication only. If there are any copyright issues, please let me know and I will deal with them in a timely manner.