EU bans funding for Chinese solar tech

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The EU is cutting public funding to clean tech projects using certain Chinese technology that could pose risks to the bloc’s power grid, officials said Monday.

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The European Union has in recent years viewed China’s dominance of the green tech sector with increasing suspicion and fears the 27-country bloc’s reliance on Chinese supply as a growing vulnerability.

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Brussels has now announced it is banning EU funding for Chinese-made inverters. Described as a “brain” for solar energy systems, inverters help connect renewable sources to the electricity grid.

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The ban has been in place since early April and applies to new projects — with some leeway granted to projects that have already advanced, an EU official said.

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The policy applies to inverters coming from China, notably from firms such as Huawei and Sungrow, but also from Russia, Iran, and North Korea, the official said.

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Technology from states deemed to be “high risk” poses many threats, the EU says.

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“Among the most pressing threats is the risk of disruption of the EU’s critical infrastructure by foreign actors,” said EU spokeswoman Siobhan McGarry.

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“In practice, this could mean a shutdown, a remote shutdown, of member states’ networks, leading to countrywide blackouts,” she added.

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The EU plans to prioritise inverters made in Europe, or use suppliers from countries deemed to be more “like-minded”, such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, or Switzerland, the official said.

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AFP

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