France is saying “non” to Chinese photovoltaic components through a mix of protectionism and cybersecurity requirements as it readies a government-backed program of new solar energy projects.
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President Emmanuel Macron’s government set out a timeline for a solar procurement effort late last week, a couple of months after publishing a 10-year energy-transition roadmap called PP3, which envisions 1.2 gigawatts of new solar capacity. Companies will be able to bid for small and ground-mounted solar projects this coming July, and for other industrial installations in the fall. As is the French way, there’s a strong preference for French companies.
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The government said its chief objective with small solar installations is to encourage citizens to go electric wherever possible, a change in power generation that should also shield them from wild swings in energy prices. For larger projects, the aim is more explicitly to onshore panel production and break free from China’s grip on the market. The government said more than 80% of key photovoltaic components currently come from China.
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Lithuania effectively banned Chinese inverters from its solar and wind installations in 2024 due to fears over remote access. Reuters reported in May 2025 that U.S. energy experts found undocumented communication devices in some China-made inverters, which could allow those devices to communicate back home in a way that bypasses the utility-company firewalls meant to prevent such things.
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The EU’s executive body signaled that it was listening in a December communication on “strengthening EU economic security,” where it highlighted solar inverters as a prime example of a critical infrastructure risk. It suggested that the devices could prove to be vectors for “manipulating electricity production parameters, preventing electricity production, [and] access to operational data.”
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France has initiated a 12 GW renewable energy auction initiative that emphasizes projects utilizing a greater proportion of European-manufactured technology, aiming to strengthen Europe’s energy autonomy. The nation also announced plans to implement cybersecurity standards in future auctions.
The 12 GW renewable auction initiative includes seven offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of 10 GW, in addition to 1.2 GW of solar energy and 0.8 GW from onshore wind sources.
The “resilience criterion” is designed to prioritize a higher proportion of European-sourced components to lessen dependence on imports, especially from China.
The bidding guidelines limit components sourced from China.
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what european made parts? panels at 30ct/W instead of 14ct/W?
10kW Inverters with half the features of a Chinese Counterpart for 2.500€ instead of 780€?
The EU should work on the pricing of European Stuff if they really care. European Companies were all bought up by Chinese Companies.
Inverter Companies like SMA have massive layoffs and the ONLY company that produces panels in Europe is Meyer-Burger.
Work on saving the market. This is just another roadblock in the much needed switch to renewables.
If you care about safety, run them in their own network and use Tailscale.
Actually the biggest European producer is Enel’s 3Sun Gigafactory in Catania, Italy, not Meyer Burger.
i am actually surprised how those went under my radar. thx
It’s not only about security and sovereignty but also to avoid imported goods made by slave labour.
The worst part of this comment is a European saying this, as if nearly all their economies weren’t built and perpetuated through slave labour.
Europe should stop importing everything and make everything in-house. That is what will get Europeans to realize just how much they’ve benefitted from imperialism, and accelerate the collapse of capitalism in Europe.
made by slave labour
How does it feel having your brain pumped full of so much xenophobic propaganda you’d make a 1930s German go “Was?”
Did they implement similar measures for other industries, like oil and gas?
Electronics can have some component of manual, relatively low skilled, assembly, but most of it is highly automated. If you desperately need a lot of domestic low skill jobs, then stop importing shoes and apparel.
Well, outside of mining. But much of that is in Africa.
Rare earth mineral mining is still crazy full of very manual child labor. Just like the chocolate industry (not that China has anything to do with the chocolate industry, that is US companies using slave labor lol)
Are you confusing Diamond mining? Rare earth mining is highly industrialized. Fun fact, Chinese synthetic diamonds are putting children/blood traders out of work.
imported goods made by slave labour.
at this point this statement is either ignorant and/or racist.
There’s valid criticisms that can be made about China, but Europeans always choose the made up claims
There is undeniable evidence of forced labour in China, especially in East Turkestan /Xinjiang. So it must be you who is ignorant.
Europeans always choose the made up claims
And this part of your statement is apparently racist.
Undeniable evidence:
said so.And you apparently don’t know what racism is if you think it applies to anything Twongo said.
if you think it applies to anything Twongo said.
Not anything, I cited one of her statements.
Cash investigation did news on cheap labor in China, US and Europe, and found out that alls had childs working and all three are exploiting cheap labor with ridiculous wages. In the US a woman was doing a 1$/hour job, in Europe some immigrants where doing a 5€/a day work. In China that was similar but I didn’t remember well. As ever corpos are fucking the peoples.
I have been trying to go all europe for my build and it is difficult, most panels are chinese. Batteries too. Inverters can be got from Germany,France and Czechia. But finding the people who operate with these parts is difficult.
France has a sodium battery but their costs and availability or not easily accessible.
Some time ago a user posted also Fronius, an Austrian company. It’s difficutl, that’s true, but it’s worth the price I would say ;-)
At least this seems to only be for government projects, banning them for private installations would basically kill the industry.
Thats the correct way to do it. Make the government buy/invest in local stuff as much as possible, support local manufacturing but let the people decide what they want to buy.
Lol good luck
First, doing uncompetitive things in general lowers national welfare. Specifically in productivity enhancing sectors such as energy, it further means competitive disadvantage. Importing cheaper renewable components creates a lot of domestic deployment work, including the scaffolding and installation.
As a national security measure, the US colony middle powers should join together on firmware development/verification, and favour open source firmware. US inverters for retail market are surprisingly expensive while still made in Asia, and would be suspect of having extra circuitry in them. Modular hardware that allows to plug in separate remote control/networking/bluetooth modules with open firmware.
Just saying “China bad” is a traitorous loser move. Renewables are energy security because of no fuel (subscription) reliance. Allowing US gas/combustion turbines is a bigger security risk from closed source CIA champion firmware. Enriched uranium and centrifuges is dominated by Russian tech. Tolerating US permission for oil access is biggest loser move ever.
Treating global warming as something that must be dominated by US Empire colonies economically is ensuring maximum global warming, because US empire was always going to force extortionist dead ender energy climate terrorism on its slaves.
Dude, touch some grass and then stop reading the sources where you get these ideas. This is an absurdly weird comment that makes no sense.
simpler version, importing more renewables is more job creation than deploying less total renewables to protect Russian uranium imports or US oil/LNG imports. National security can be addressed without bans.
