Up To 40% Of Chinese Solar Panels For Domestic Consumption Fail To Meet Output Specifications

[hatrack]

Flaws found in some Chinese solar panels can drastically eat into their efficiency, reducing how much power the panels will produce as the country races to meet aggressive goals to hold the line on fossil fuel emissions. The defects, found in products set to be used only in China, are in a coating that suppresses reflections on glass, allowing the panels to capture more light. About 23 percent of samples taken from dozens of Chinese companies failed to meet requirements, according to regulators in China. For samples from Jiangsu, the eastern province where much of the glass is made, the rate was as high as 40 percent.

China is promoting both large solar farms in remote areas and smaller, rooftop systems within cities, and domestic demand for panels is climbing. In a landmark pact announced with the U.S. in November, China set a target of getting as much as 20 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2030. That goal will rely heavily on its rapidly growing solar industry, which controls about 70 percent of the global market.

“A reduction in power generation caused by quality imperfections means declining investment returns or even losses from solar farms,” said Meng Xiangan, vice chairman of the China Renewable Energy Society, an industry group.

China became the world’s biggest solar market in 2013 and accounted for about a quarter of global solar additions in 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Its total solar installations surged almost 10-fold in the past three years to about 33 gigawatts. The findings, which didn’t identify specific manufacturers, feed into criticism that quality problems at solar panel makers are a result of cost cuts as prices have plunged in recent years.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-20/defective-panels-threatening-profit-at-china-solar-farms-energy.html

[DetlefK]

1. No, it's because China values looks over quality, be it in art or technology.

Copying designs has a very old tradition in China and it's actually a sign of admiration. This can easily be found for art.

But when applying that same attitude to copying technological designs, things can go wrong, because technology is more than looks.

For example: Just another day I read an article about the electronics-exhibition CES. A journalist found a device there that can turn any wooden box into a speaker. And a few hundred meters from that stand he found a chinese stand that sold copycat-versions. Their device had exactly the same stylish design on the outside, but when one was taken apart, it turned out the electronics were badly layed out and shoddily soldered.

I also had a chinese colleague who complained about the chinese disregard for quality over getting the job somehow done.

[bananas]

3. Their nuclear plants are going to be a nightmare.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014429332

Mar 19, 2013

Chinese nuclear disaster “highly probable” by 2030
Source: China Dialogue

China is heading for a nuclear accident if it continues with current construction plans, says former state nuclear physicist and prominent critic He Zuoxiu.

<snip>

[DetlefK]

4. I guess, it's a deeper psychological phenomenon, an unwanted side-effect.

1. There was the same problem in the communist nations of Europe: The workers didn't care about the quality of the products because they had no emotional connection to the product. "Why should I sort the plastic-threads out of the hay? It's not my cow, it's everybody's cow. Let somebody else do this."

2. A few decades ago, a scientist found out that horses pull less hard on the carriage (individually) the more horses there are. 5 horses together pull as hard as 5 individual horses. But 10 horses together pull less hard than 10 individual horses.



"Why should I do more than the minimum, when there are so many others?"

The chinese empire was a monolithic, bureaucratic top-down state that existed for two millenia. And it transitioned into a monolithic, bureaucratic top-down state. The chinese people have never known another culture.

[Bill USA]

2. now we know how they could under-bid U.S. manufacturers.