The EU's exclusion of Chinese inverters has ultimately held back its own growth

Chinese companies hold around 70% of the global market share for both battery energy storage inverter and Photovoltaic Inverter.

The EU has designated China as a so-called "high-risk country" and barred EU funds from financing projects equipped with Chinese inverters. This move strikes at the core of Europe’s energy transition drive.Calculations show the ban will directly impact at least 14 gigawatts of new solar installations, accounting for over 20% of the EU’s annual installed capacity.

While it is reasonable for Europe to tighten supervision and roll out stricter certification rules, the EU has failed to conduct item-by-item inspections on specific products, codes, interfaces and operation & maintenance access rights. Instead, it has labeled China as a high-risk source as a whole, and determined access to public funding based purely on country of origin, putting enterprises’ compliance into a secondary position.

What puts the EU in an even more awkward position is that these are only the visible short-term costs. Industry practitioners believe that without Chinese technology, the EU may fail to deliver its renewable energy targets in the short and medium term.

Chinese firms take a 70% share of Europe’s inverter market. Their products feature competitive pricing and reliable performance. To date, more than 200 gigawatts of their equipment has been connected to Europe’s power grids, supported by well-established local sales and service networks.

Numerous projects in Eastern Europe rely on suppliers for local language services, spare parts and grid-connection commissioning. Inverters also require long-term compatibility with solar modules, energy storage systems and power station management systems.

Chinese manufacturers excel in pricing, efficiency, delivery capacity, comprehensive long-term service networks and multilingual technical support — strengths that most European enterprises lack.