China's consultation on banning solar-technology exports closes Sunday as Indian manufacturers turn to Germany

China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology have proposed adding 12 solar technologies to the country's catalogue of technologies that are banned or restricted from export, according to Chinese financial coverage of Announcement No. 48. The public consultation ends on November 15. The draft would ban exports of manufacturing processes for perovskite and perovskite-silicon tandem cells, fluidized-bed polysilicon lines with annual capacity of at least 250,000 tonnes, and wafers 70 micrometers thick or thinner. It would restrict exports of polysilicon engineering for lines of 30,000 tonnes or more, wafer processes at 130 micrometers or below, and the high-efficiency cell designs known as TOPCon, xBC and HJT, PV Tech reported. The controls would also cover the core equipment that carries these technologies.

The Commerce Ministry gave two reasons. Solar technology now has uses in aerospace and defense, so exporting it may carry national-security risk. And some foreign governments require Chinese companies that build local factories to transfer core processes. The second reason matters most to buyers. Beijing is trying to keep its technological lead from being given away as a condition of overseas investment.

India is exposed. Mint reported that Indian manufacturers are looking to German equipment and process suppliers because the curbs could hurt India's plan to build a domestic supply chain, including 100 gigawatts of wafer, ingot and polysilicon capacity by the end of the decade. Most of India's planned upstream solar capacity depends on Chinese tools and know-how.

The solar list is part of a wider consultation on 40 technologies in AI, biomedicine and solar. Beijing has already applied the same approach to rare earths and battery technology.