Following Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Laos, the United States may impose tariffs on the import channels of photovoltaic products.
According to local media reports in the United States, on May 12, First Solar, Qcells and other parts of the United States photovoltaic related allegations." Two Japanese companies, TOYO and Origin Solar, produce silicon wafers for solar cells in Ethiopia from China . The two companies then assembled solar cells into photovoltaic modules in Ethiopia or Vietnam and eventually exported them to the United States .
Reported that in the second half of 2025 alone, the total amount of photovoltaic products imported by the United States from Ethiopia has reached $300 million. The country has become the seventh largest source of photovoltaic imports in the United States .
Earlier, in April this year, Vietnamese photovoltaic manufacturer VSUN's photovoltaic module products shipped to the United States were seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on the grounds that CBP suspected that the raw materials in the company's photovoltaic products came from China.
At that time, according to foreign media reports, the batteries used in the seized components may have come from the Ethiopian factory of TOYO, a Japanese photovoltaic manufacturer affiliated to VSUN. According to
Ethiopian
data, Japan's TOYO announced in October 2024 the establishment of a 2G W battery manufacturing plant in Ethiopia, with an estimated investment of $60 million. The battery manufacturing plant was put into production in April 2025, and in March 2025, the company announced the expansion of the 2G W module plant in the area, with an estimated investment of $47 million, with the goal of supplying the U.S. market.
It is worth noting that Origin Solar's technology partner is Atlas , also located in Hawassa Campus. In May
2025, the media reported that at the "Invest in Ethiopia" high-level business forum, Atlas promised to invest 2.
With the outbreak of demand for new photovoltaic energy in the African market, many Chinese photovoltaic enterprises have focused their investment on the region, among which Ethiopia has become an important investment destination for Chinese photovoltaic enterprises in East Africa.
In addition to Atlas, a number of Chinese photovoltaic enterprises signed investment projects at the above business forum. The details are as follows:
Junda plans to build a solar cell manufacturing plant in the local area; In cooperation with Jandu , Hanergy New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has promised to invest 3.
Dongfang Risheng invested 200 million US dollars to build a photovoltaic module factory in Ethiopia. While
American companies are applying to investigate Ethiopia, the news that Mingyang Group has invested more than $10 billion in green energy projects in Ethiopia has aroused heated discussion in China. In fact, the project was signed as early as March this year.
According to the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), the planned investment of Mingyang Group has increased to US $ 14.1 billion.
The company plans to invest $ 7.47 billion in the first phase to build 8.4G W renewable energy projects locally. These include 5.4GW wind power projects and 2.
First of all, Ethiopia has not been included in the scope of anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs on photovoltaic products by the United States, and in a specific policy period.
Secondly, Ethiopia's industrial electricity cost has a comparative advantage in Africa, which provides a key energy cost basis for the landing of photovoltaic manufacturing links. The country's energy structure, which is dominated by hydropower, supports lower power generation costs and has certain regional competitiveness in industrial power consumption. Fuxing Dam in
Ethiopia Source: Internet
According to the relevant content of the Ministry of Commerce of China on April 22, The average price of electricity for industrial use in Kenya is 0.18 – 0.18, while the average price in Ethiopia and Morocco is about US $0.05/kWh , and in South Africa and Egypt is about US $0.03/kWh . Tanzania and Uganda are about 0.08 USD/kWh and 0 respectively. Overall, the industrial electricity price in the country is at a low level in Africa, which provides cost optimization space for the middle and later stages of PV module manufacturing, packaging and assembly. Ethiopia
also has an obvious labor cost advantage . Data show that the total population of the country in 2024 is about 1. EIC official website data show that the country has more than 60 million labor force, and the scale of labor reserve ranks second in Africa , which provides sufficient low-cost labor base for labor-intensive component packaging and other links in the photovoltaic industry chain.
At the same time, Ethiopia's local photovoltaic demand is rapidly releasing . The country plans to achieve universal power coverage by 2030, but there is still a significant urban-rural gap in power access and low coverage in remote rural areas, making off-grid photovoltaic an important supplementary path beyond grid extension. In this context, the continuous expansion of distributed photovoltaic and solar home systems has promoted the simultaneous growth of local photovoltaic terminal demand and supporting solutions.
In addition, Ethiopia is also an important node country of China's "the Belt and Road" cooperation in Africa, and Chinese photovoltaic enterprises have a better policy and infrastructure synergy environment for local investment and capacity distribution, thus enhancing the certainty of their industrial landing.
浙公网安备33010802003254号