Europe’s bid to expand its green tech industry faces a host of challenges, including high energy costs and supply chain issues, solar industry representatives gathered in Madrid warned on Thursday.
The company has manufacturing operations in China, Vietnam and Thailand but not in Europe. It plans to invest more than $200-million to build a solar photovoltaic manufacturing facility in Texas, its first in the northern hemisphere.European products are more expensive according to Christopher Atassi of Gonvarri Solar Steel, part of a Spanish industrial firm with factories around the world, including China, the United States, Spain and other European countries.
Panelists said on Thursday this is due in part to higher energy and labour costs, as well as lack of competitive supply chains. For example, in the third quarter of last year, retail electricity prices paid by industrial customers in the EU were roughly twice as high as China’s, according to the European Commission.