US Solar Company relies on materials in Xinjiang where forced labor is common

He had the support of this project Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism, Pulitzer Center, and Open Technology Fund.

Solar energy has created a reputation as a virtuous industry, saving the clean planet by saving energy. But the industry has a dirty cavity: it relies heavily on Xinjiang — a region that has become synonymous with the forced labor of Muslim minority in China — to get the essential ingredients.

In the last four years, China has arrested more than a million people network of detention facilities Throughout the Xinjiang region. Lots of these camps factory content where Muslim minorities are forced to work. The solar industry relies on parts and materials imported from that region, as heavy government surveillance makes it almost impossible for outside observers to assess whether people are working voluntarily. However, there are few alternative suppliers in the US for the components needed by the solar industry.

A special problem for polysilicon is the metallic gray-gray crystal of the component that forms light that converts light into energy. In 2016, only 9% of solar-level polysilicon came from Xinjiang. It accounted for about 45% of world supply by 2020, according to industry analyst Johannes Bernreuter.

A major Chinese polysilicon manufacturer has close ties to a state-controlled paramilitary organization, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). Last year, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the XPCC for helping Beijing carry out massive internal incarceration of Muslims, and the U.S. banned cotton, citing evidence that it was produced using forced labor.

Another major Chinese polysilicon producer said “vocational schools”In Xinjiang, the red flag has long been used by the Chinese government as a euphemism for areas of incarceration.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents U.S. solar companies, is opposed to what is a “reprehensible” violation of human rights in Xinjiang and the company is “encouraging” supply chains to move out of the region, said John Smirnow, the group’s chief executive.

“We have no indication that the sun is directly involved,” he said, “but given the reports, we want to make sure that forced labor is never part of the solar supply chain.”

But as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to step down after promising to improve clean energy infrastructure in the U.S., the solar industry faces a choice: set aside the risk of human rights violations or develop expensive alternatives to an industry struggling to compete. more polluting ways to produce energy.

China dominated after the global polysilicon industry put tariffs on polysilicon imports From the US, South Korea and the EU and increased domestic production, In apparent retaliation against tariffs imposed by the US, In 2014. China is one of the largest consumers of polysilicon in the world, which means that it is less desirable for many companies outside China to compete because it was no longer a cost-effective export. Since then, China’s polysilicon industry has progressed, not only in Xinjiang, but also in other regions of southwestern Sichuan province.

“Most of the supply chain is concentrated in China, and most of the rest of Southeast Asia is in factories owned by Chinese companies,” Bernreuter said. “There is no great alternative for the supply chain.”

But imports from Xinjiang have sparked outrage from U.S. lawmakers in recent months.

At the last Congress, representatives playing a bill that would ban all property in the region, legislation that will be revived in the coming session. House bill specifically targeted “poverty alleviation” programs Xinjiang Muslims who move to work in factories and farms are far from home.

Since the end of 2016, the Chinese government has launched a campaign that includes mass arrests, digital surveillance, indoctrination and forced labor for the population of 13 million Muslim minorities in the far-western region of Xinjiang, including ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others. . Police tend to control or school non-Chinese people who go to Xinjiang, so it is very difficult for companies to inspect supply chains for forced labor.

“It is almost impossible to confidently assess working conditions in Xinjiang because it is almost impossible to get a competent assessor in the region. And then the ability to interview staff, especially Uyghur workers, is limited due to care,” said Amy Lehr, Washington, DC Center for Strategic and International Studies. Director and Chief Author of the Human Rights Program. of a report about forced labor in the region, he told BuzzFeed News.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection already has the legal authority to ban imports from the region if it suspects forced labor has been used. The agency stopped sending human hair from Xinjiang in July based on reports that the extensions were done using prison work. In December, CBP kidnapped shipments Xinjiang cotton and computer parts. This week, he forbade it imports of tomato and cotton products from the region over what he called “slave labor”.

“It is likely that solar companies will be investigated by CBP for the risks of forced labor associated with Xinjiang in supply chains, even if there is no ban in the region, because this issue is paying more attention,” Lehr said.

The Horizon Advisory research team said in a report that Xinjiang’s polysilicization is drying up frequently in the U.S.

“These goods enter the United States directly and indirectly from China to several other countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore and Vietnam,” the report said. “Industry,” including solar panels imported and installed in the United States.

Forced labor is typically used for jobs that do not require specialized skills. Some of these types of tasks, such as separating pipes from the material, are used in the production of polysilicon.

If the U.S. were to ban polysilicon imports from China, industry experts say U.S. companies would have enough capacity to address the shortage, but they will face higher costs and other problems in the supply chain.

On the one hand, other parts used in solar panels are also dominated by Chinese manufactures. After polysilication, it is divided into tiny nuggets called “wafers”. Most of Olan’s authors are from China. And compared to other places in China, polysilicon manufacturing is cheaper in Xinjiang, where companies can receive large government subsidies and electricity costs, provided by coal plants, and wages are usually lower than in the richest places in China.

REC Silicon, a Norwegian polysilicization manufacturer with manufacturing facilities in the U.S., has invested more than $ 1 billion in building a polysilication plant in Washington state. After the arrival of Chinese tariffs on US goods, the company first had to slow production and then close it completely in 2019.

And the industry may have more domestic difficulties ahead of time. Director of Hemlock Semiconductor Group, a US polysilicon manufacturer. they told investors on Oct. 22 he was “quite convinced” that the U.S. government is coming to an investigation into the solar supply chain.

Most of the polysilicon in Xinjiang it is made by four Chinese companies that are one of the four largest suppliers of materials in the world. One, Daqo New Energy Corp, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This is accompanied by transparency requirements that allow a better understanding of its operation.

According to Chinese state media reports and the company’s website, it is closely linked to a Chinese state-controlled paramilitary organization called the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) – an organization that administers cities in the region that is so powerful. It is best known in Chinese as “corpse”. There they have been helping Chinese migrants settle in Xinjiang and administer farms. The XPCC released a policy document in 2013 setting solar energy as one of its “development goals”.

In July, the U.S. government put the XPCC under sanctions, saying it had helped implement a policy of mass incarceration in Beijing aimed at Muslims. Dec. 2, USA he banned cotton imports Produced by XPCC, citing evidence that forced labor is used.

Could not comment on XPCC.

In a public presentation at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in October, Daqo reported that it achieved “additional advantages” in electricity costs because the XPCC uses the regional electricity grid. Local state newspaper reported The XPCC paid more than 489,447 yuan (about $ 75,000) in Daqo aid. The companies received millions more in subsidies from the Shihezi government in the XPCC-administered city of Xinjiang. Chinese in a language Press release, Daqo’s Xinjiang subsidiary has stated that it is considered the XPCC’s “innovative pilot business unit”.

Daqo’s polysilication plant is located 7 kilometers north of Shihezi city. Construction began in the spring of 2011 when agricultural areas the size of 110 football fields were cleared to make way for the plant. By 2013, it was completed, an area covered by large industrial buildings, connected by a network of elevated pipes. In 2014, the compound was extended by another 3 million square meters and new buildings continued to be added over the next two years. The last growth of the plant took place in the summer of 2019. Another 3 million square feet were added at the southwest end of the compound, and parts of the previously unused plot were filled with buildings. The plant currently covers 12.2 million square meters, the equivalent of 215 football fields.

Daqora could not comment, however he has said before it does not use forced labor “under any circumstances in its facilities or throughout the supply chain.”

In Xinjiang, programs euphemistically described as “poverty alleviation” have been linked to forced labor, according to research by CSIS and other organizations.

One of Xinjiang’s other major polysilicon manufacturers, GCL-Poly Energy, said it works with Xinjiang’s “vocational schools” in an annual report. The government has long designated vocational schools in the region’s internalization frameworks. Chinese news also says that GCL-Poly is involved in poverty alleviation programs.

Could not comment on GCL-Poly.

Industry needs to make a choice, said Francine Sullivan, vice president of silicon polysilication business development at REC Silicon.

“Having an industry built on coal and slave labor would not be sustainable,” he said. “Most people in sunlight think it’s going to wash away the green from us. We don’t have to deal with it because we’re in the sun.” ●