Some Chinese solar companies plan to outsource manufacturing abroad in a bid to circumvent U.S. anti-dumping duties on imports of made-in-China panels. However, setting up new manufacturing hubs outside of China will push up costs and translate into higher prices for solar products, with the biggest victim being the American consumer, said Gao Jifan, Chief Executive of Trina Solar, which is based in Changzhou, Jiangsu. More Chinese companies are considering outsourcing in Malaysia and Taiwan. But Li Junfeng, President of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, warned that Chinese companies shouldn’t rely too much on that strategy because the U.S. may well adjust the conditions of its tariff ruling. “We shouldn’t rely on outsourcing,” he said. “There are many conditions in the U.S. ruling, and they could adjust them over time in favor of American producers if they notice the outsourcing trend.” Li said the key task for China is to convince the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the U.S. ruling is groundless. Li is also an energy official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planning agency. In its anti-dumping investigation, the U.S. Commerce Department used production costs in Thailand, which produced about 0.1 GW of solar panels last year, as a proxy for costs in China, which produced 15 GW. China actually runs a trade deficit with the U.S. in the solar industry because it buys machinery equipment and raw materials, like polysilicon, from abroad to make solar products. The U.S. action could trigger countermeasures from China. In the polysilicon sector, companies have been filing petitions asking the government to impose anti-dumping tariffs against the U.S., which is second only to China in polysilicon production. “If China does impose punitive tariffs on imports, it could make U.S. producers less competitive in the largest market for polysilicon,” Charles Annis, Vice President of Solarbuzz, said, as reported by the Shanghai Daily.

Trina Solar CEO Gao Jifan is among the industrial pace setters in China. Trina’s huge factory has 14,000 employees and produces the new generation of “Honey” solar cells, with record-breaking efficiency levels. “We’ve progressed by spending a lot on research and development, but also thanks to a commitment to service and quality,” said Gao, who set up the company in 1997 after a background in chemical engineering.

“We hope that solar programs can be included if the nation is going to launch a new fiscal stimulus,” said Zhang Jianmin, Senior Manager of the CEO’s office of Suntech Power Holdings Co, the world’s biggest solar panel manufacturer. Solar energy was not included in the CNY4 trillion stimulus package adopted by the central government in 2008. Zhang said if there is no direct fiscal support, it will still be helpful if authorities would clarify policies for the industry. Although Chinese manufacturers account for 60% of the solar industry’s global output, the use of solar power within China is not widespread. “It will definitely boost the industry if the central government (prepares) policies that will integrate more solar-generated electricity into the grid, or if it encourages the construction of off-grid solar power stations,” he said. Tao Dong, a Hong Kong-based Economist with Crédit Suisse Group expects the stimulus to be as much as CNY2 trillion, but NDRC officials denied that there will be any large-scale stimulus.

“The second round of bidding for offshore concession projects, which had been scheduled to start in the first half of 2012, is likely to be put off due to significant delays in the first concession projects,” said Shi Pengfei, Vice President of the China Wind Energy Association. The second group of concession projects, totaling up to 2 GW, are to be built in Jiangsu, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces. According to the National Energy Administration (NEA), China will build 5 GW of off-shore wind projects by 2015. But Shi said delays may mean missing the target. China’s installed off-shore wind power capacity was only 258 MW last year, statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council show, although China’s onshore wind power capacity is the world’s largest reaching almost 63 GW last year. In 2010, China awarded four contracts in the first round of bids to construct 1 GW of wind capacity in off-shore and intertidal (shoreline areas exposed at low tide) concession projects that were to be completed in four years. However, construction hasn’t started on the projects. “A lack of coordination among different government bodies” was one cause of the delays, said Liu Qi, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Electric Wind Power Equipment Co, a wind turbine manufacturer. Industry participants also mention site changes, environmental issues and low feed-in tariffs as reasons for the lack of progress.  Since China’s wind farm developers were competing for the first off-shore projects regardless of price to get a foothold in the market, the average feed-in-tariff was only about CNY0.7 per kilowatt hour, which barely covers costs. An economically viable off-shore feed-in tariff should be at least CNY0.8 per kWh, according to turbine makers and wind farm operators. China’s only offshore wind farm in commercial operation is the 102 MW Shanghai East Sea Bridge Off-shore Wind Farm, which went into operation in June 2010. The feed-in tariff for this project was CNY0.978 per kWh. “The government will review the first four off-shore projects and changes in the feed-in tariff are likely,” said Li Junfeng, President of the China Renewable Energy Industries Association.

China is in a good position to produce coalbed methane at  low cost and reduce its dependency on imports. According to the UK consultancy Wood Mackenzie, coal-bed methane could contribute 14% to China’s domestic supply of gas by 2030, but because of a lack of expertise in techniques used to retrieve it, the resource is still little used in China. The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has introduced a commercial application of a technique known as multi-branched horizontal well drilling, which can be used to explore for coal-based methane at a low cost. Before CNPC’s technological advance, foreign groups had largely held a monopoly over the production of equipment needed to connect horizontal and vertical mine shafts underground, a requirement in multi-branched horizontal drilling, making it expensive for Chinese companies to obtain those important components. CNPC’s innovation promises to reduce the cost of a single well by a third, taking it to less than CNY10 million. CNPC said multi-branched horizontal wells are capable of producing up to 10 times as much of the gas a day as are vertical shafts. China is the world’s third-largest owner of coal-bed methane resources, containing 36.81 trillion cubic meters (cu m) of the gas. To accelerate the exploration for coal-bed methane in Chinese mines, the Ministry of Finance decided in 2011 to eliminate the tariffs and value-added taxes formerly charged on equipment and components used to refine the gas in mines. By 2015, China plans to be able to produce 30 billion cu m of coal-bed methane, up from 1.57 billion cu m in 2010. PetroChina International Co announced plans to put USD1.5 billion into a coal-bed methane plant this year and has ambitions to produce 4.5 billion cu m of the gas a year by 2015. China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) aims to produce 2.5 billion cu m a year by 2015. Wood Mackenzie said China will be using 566 million cu m of gas a day by 2015, of which it will import about 30%, the China Daily reports.

The Chinese energy group Hanergy Holding Group agreed to acquire all of the shares that Q-Cells SE, a German maker of solar panels, holds in its subsidiary Solibro, a maker of thin-film solar panels. After the completion of the acquisition, Solibro will increase its yearly production capacity to 100 megawatt (MW) in order to supply power to Hanergy customers in Europe. “Hanergy has taken many big steps in recent years and the latest acquisition will help the company improve its technology used in manufacturing thin-film solar panels, which still lags behind what is used internationally,” said Gao Hongling, Deputy Secretary General of the China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance. China is the world’s largest maker of solar panels, mainly producing polysilicon panels. Manufacturers that want to make thin-film panels are faced with technical obstacles. Gao said the thin-film solar industry has developed slowly in the past few years, with some companies reducing their thin-film output. Following the acquisition, Hanergy’s chief competitor will be U.S.-based First Solar, the world’s largest manufacturer of thin-film panels. Hanergy has decided to put money into a specific technology, called copper indium gallium di-selenide co-evaporation, which Solibro has developed over the past 25 years. Hanergy Chairman Li Hejun said the acquisition will consolidate the company’s position in the global market.