Business Freeze: Germany’s Last Solar Panel Manufacturers Finally Crushed

Germany’s costly and chaotic wind and solar transition has served up plenty of casualties. Large numbers of energy intensive manufacturers have already bailed out – chasing cheap power prices in places like the US and Singapore.

Now, in a rather ironic twist, its solar panel manufacturing industry has all but thrown in the towel.

Notwithstanding very generous subsidies for those willing to purchase German made panels, its solar industry has been swamped by cheap Chinese imports, while local manufacturers are being crushed by Europe’s highest power prices; just like every other German industry, as the team from Jo Nova outline below.

German solar industry collapsing: unable to make solar panels from solar power
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
1 May 2024

About 90% of solar panels installed in Germany come from China, and earlier this year one of the last solar panel manufacturers closed in Germany. Last week, what was left of the industry begged for mercy (and subsidies) which they didn’t get. Now another German solar panel manufacturer has closed down.

For some cruel reason German factories which are close to their customers, can’t compete with distant foreign factories which have access to slave labour, fossil fueled shipping and cheap coal fired electricity?

The bigger question, seemingly, is how did the country that invented the printing press, diesel engines, and the theory-of-relativity get fooled by such a stupid ploy? Someone told them they could save the world with unreliable energy, so they converted their generators to unreliable ones, only to discover that they can’t afford to use unreliable generators to make the unreliable generators they need to keep saving the world?

The only government stupider than Germany is the one that has already seen how badly this worked out and announces they’re going to do the same thing. Australia is not only ten years too late, but China has flooded the market to the point where people are using solar panels as garden fences, and we have our own glut of solar power at midday.

The last hope of the German solar industry was a government mandated “bonus” for people who bought German solar panels.

April 23rd:

German solar industry warns “last chance” for sector’s renaissance could be missed

Benjamin Wehrmann CleanEnergyWire

Carsten Körnig, head of solar power lobby group BSW,  …added that the solar industry was disappointed by the decision to leave out a “resilience bonus” for installations made in Europe. Given the stiff competition between producers in the U.S. and Asia for securing a share of the market in solar panel production, Körnig said including the bonus in the package would allow Germany to achieve greater supply security for the important future technology, adding that it is “perhaps the last chance for a renaissance of Germany’s solar industry”.

April 30:

Solarwatt becomes second solar PV producer to halt production in Germany in 2024

 Carolina Kyllmann CleanEnergyWire

Solar panel manufacturer Solarwatt is set to halt production of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules in its factory in Dresden, business daily Handelsblatt reported. “Under the current circumstances, running a production facility here in Germany is extremely difficult economically, and we cannot justify this,” Solarwatt head Detlef Neuhaus told the newspaper. The plant with an annual production capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) will close “for the time being” at the end of August, with 190 jobs directly affected by the shutdown.

China generates 60% of its electricity with coal, while Germany uses 32% coal, and 30% solar-and-wind power. What should Germany do, bring back coal, or get some slaves?

Solar panels are now in the “top five” worst slave industries in the world, yet still barely any of the morality-police care. They’re apparently too busy atoning for slavery they didn’t cause that doesn’t exist anymore to worry about slaves that are alive today.
Jo Nova Blog