Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From the People's Republic of China: Notice of Final Results of Changed Circumstances Reviews

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-979, C-570-980]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From the People's Republic of China: Notice of Final Results of Changed Circumstances Reviews</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On June 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) published the preliminary results of the changed circumstances reviews (CCR) of the antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules (solar cells) from the People's Republic of China (China), with respect to Hanwha Q CELLS Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. For these final results, Commerce continues to find it appropriate to amend the Appendix V certification to include the additional wafer suppliers identified by Hanwha in its CCR requests. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable December 12, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Peter Shaw, AD/CVD Operations, Office VII, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-0697. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On June 26, 2024, Commerce published the preliminary results of these CCRs, determining that it would be appropriate to amend the Appendix V certification, provided in <E T="03">Solar Cells Circumvention,</E> <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> by adding new wafer suppliers identified by Hanwha Q CELLS Sdn. Bhd. and Hanwha Q Cells USA, Inc. (collectively, Hanwha). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> We provided all interested parties with an opportunity to comment. On July 26, 2024, Hanwha submitted a case brief. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> No other interested party filed a case or rebuttal brief. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from the People's Republic of China: Final Scope Determination and Final Affirmative Determinations of Circumvention with Respect to Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam,</E> 88 FR 57419 (August 23, 2023) ( <E T="03">Solar Cells Circumvention</E> ), and accompanying Malaysia Issues and Decision Memorandum (Malaysia IDM). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from the People's Republic of China: Initiation and Preliminary Results of Changed Circumstances Review,</E> 89 FR 53388 (June 26, 2024) ( <E T="03">Preliminary Results</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Hanwha's Letter, “QCells' Case Brief,” dated July 26, 2024 (Hanwha Case Brief). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Orders</HD> The merchandise covered by these <E T="03">Orders</E> is crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, and modules, laminates, and panels, consisting of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not partially or fully assembled into other products, including, but not limited to, modules, laminates, panels and building integrated materials. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from the People's Republic of China: Countervailing Duty Order,</E> 77 FR 73017 (December 7, 2012); <E T="03">see also Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules from the People's Republic of China: Amended Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, and Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 77 FR 73018 (December 7, 2012) (collectively, <E T="03">Orders</E> ). On March 20, 2024, based on a CCR, Commerce amended the <E T="03">Orders. See Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from the People's Republic of China: Final Results of Changed Circumstances Reviews, and Revocation of the Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders, in Part,</E> 89 FR 19809 (March 20, 2024). </FTNT> These <E T="03">Orders</E> cover crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells of thickness equal to or greater than 20 micrometers, having a p/n junction formed by any means, whether or not the cell has undergone other processing, including, but not limited to, cleaning, etching, coating, and/or addition of materials (including, but not limited to, metallization and conductor patterns) to collect and forward the electricity that is generated by the cell. Merchandise under consideration may be described at the time of importation as parts for final finished products that are assembled after importation, including, but not limited to, modules, laminates, panels, building-integrated modules, building-integrated panels, or other finished goods kits. Such parts that otherwise meet the definition of merchandise under consideration are included in the scope of the <E T="03">Orders.</E> Excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are thin film photovoltaic products produced from amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), or copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). Also excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, not exceeding 10,000mm <SU>2</SU> in surface area, that are permanently integrated into a consumer good whose function is other than power generation and that consumes the electricity generated by the integrated crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell. Where more than one cell is permanently integrated into a consumer good, the surface area for purposes of this exclusion shall be the total combined surface area of all cells that are integrated into the consumer good. Additionally, excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are panels with surface area from 3,450 mm <SU>2</SU> to 33,782 mm <SU>2</SU> with one black wire and one red wire (each of type 22 AWG or 24 AWG not more than 206 mm in length when measured from panel extrusion), and not exceeding 2.9 volts, 1.1 amps, and 3.19 watts. For the purposes of this exclusion, no panel shall contain an internal battery or external computer peripheral ports. Also excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are: 1. Off grid CSPV panels in rigid form with a glass cover, with the following characteristics: (A) a total power output of 100 watts or less per panel; (B) a maximum surface area of 8,000 cm <SU>2</SU> per panel; (C) do not include a built-in inverter; (D) must include a permanently connected wire that terminates in either an 8mm male barrel connector, or a two-port rectangular connector with two pins in square housings of different colors; (E) must include visible parallel grid collector metallic wire lines every 1-4 millimeters across each solar cell; and (F) must be in individual retail packaging (for purposes of this provision, retail packaging typically includes graphics, the product name, its description and/or features, and foam for transport); and 2. Off grid CSPV panels without a glass cover, with the following characteristics: (A) a total power output of 100 watts or less per panel; (B) a maximum surface area of 8,000 cm <SU>2</SU> per panel; (C) do not include a built-in inverter; (D) must include visible parallel grid collector metallic wire lines every 1-4 millimeters across each solar cell; and (E) each panel is 1. permanently integrated into a consumer good; 2. encased in a laminated material without stitching, or 3. has all of the following characteristics: (i) the panel is encased in sewn fabric with visible stitching, (ii) includes a mesh zippered storage pocket, and (iii) includes a permanently attached wire that terminates in a female USB-A connector. In addition, the following CSPV panels are excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders:</E> Off-grid CSPV panels in rigid form with a glass cover, with each of the following physical characteristics, whether or not assembled into a fully completed off-grid hydropanel whose function is conversion of water vapor into liquid water: (A) A total power output of no more than 80 watts per panel; (B) A surface area of less than 5,000 cm <SU>2</SU> per panel; (C) Do not include a built-in inverter; (D) Do not have a frame around the edges of the panel; (E) Include a clear glass back panel; and (F) Must include a permanently connected wire that terminates in a two-port rectangular connector. Modules, laminates, and panels produced in a third country from cells produced in China are covered by the <E T="03">Orders;</E> however, modules, laminates, and panels produced in China from cells produced in a third country are not covered by the <E T="03">Orders.</E> Additionally excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are off-grid small portable crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels, with or without a glass cover, with the following characteristics: (1) a total power output of 200 watts or less per panel; (2) a maximum surface area of 16,000 cm2 per panel; (3) no built-in inverter; (4) an integrated handle or a handle attached to the package for ease of carry; (5) one or more integrated kickstands for easy installation or angle adjustment; and (6) a wire of not less than 3 meters either permanently connected or attached to the package that terminates in an 8 mm diameter male barrel connector. Also excluded from the scope of this <E T="03">Orders</E> are off-grid crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels in rigid form with a glass cover, with each of the following physica ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━