Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

The most significant US regulations in the area aren't even mentioned in this article: the prohibitively high tariffs on Chinese solar modules and electric vehicles, which at least double the cost of solar panels and EVs in the US compared to much of the rest of the world.

Current US elites grew up in the energy crisis that started with the Arab oil embargo of 01973 cutting off US energy imports, and they seem determined to perpetuate that crisis, if necessary by cutting off US imports of energy production infrastructure themselves now that the foreigners won't do it for them anymore.

The article vastly understates the rapidity of the change. It projects 3 TW of new renewable generation capacity in China over the next decade (02026-02036, I suppose), attributing that to an unpublished report from a consultancy that seems to protect its projections from criticism with an NDA. Given that the PRC installed 373 GW in renewable generation capacity last year (https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202501/28/cont...) this seems like an implausibly low figure; linear extrapolation of installing that same amount every year would give us 3.7 TW installed over that period. But in fact it has been growing exponentially, so 20 TW of added capacity over the next decade seems like a more likely ballpark.

That's nameplate capacity, so it's closer to 4 TW of actual energy generation.

China's solar panels are cheap because the Chinese government is subsidizing solar panel production with the express purpose of destroying solar panel industries in other nations. Hence, many countries impose tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/business/china-solar-ener...

More trustworthy link for the article: https://archive.fo/oD56w

This is basically nonsense. Chinese solar panels are cheap because they are produced efficiently, with orders of magnitude less materials and energy than were required in 02012, when the US started imposing "anti-dumping" tariffs on them.

I've read many of the US Department of Commerce filings on the topic attempting to argue that the current prices are unfairly subsidized. The arguments are embarrassingly bad, arguing over things like what the fair price of solar glass should be, or whether the fair price of the labor of Chinese solar panel assembly workers should be determined by comparing to Malaysian electronics assembly labor or Romanian electronics assembly labor. (They settled on Turkish labor.)

Even when resorting to such absurd arguments, the countervailing tariffs the DoC decided it could justify were only in the range of 10-15%:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/11/2023-14...

Finding the original filings in these cases, spanning 13 years at this point, took a fair bit of digging, but it was very eye-opening. See for example https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2014-12-23/pdf/2014-3... and Barcode:4426784-02 C-570-011 (not linkable by any URL).

But, basically, you have to ask, if subsidies are the reason Chinese solar module prices today are lower than module prices were in 02012, when they cost €0.64 per peak watt instead of today's €0.110, does that mean that Chinese taxpayers are paying 82% of the cost of installing solar panels around the world? China is just exporting €100 billion a year of its tax revenues in the form of solar panels, with the intent of at some point raising the prices to above where they were in 02012, say €0.75 per peak watt? When should we expect that other shoe to drop?

Because the solar panel industries in other nations are pretty thoroughly destroyed, except for those created by Chinese companies seeking ways around US tariffs.

It just isn't a plausible story, even if it is being promoted by the same newspaper that promoted the story of Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" to justify invading Iraq.

Are they that far ahead with manufacturing improvements?

The NYT article you linked talked about them using cheap(polluting) coal power and cheap(slave labor) mineral inputs.

Yes, although the rest of the world is catching up, and manufacturers in many countries now sell solar modules at prices much lower than the prices that launched the "dumping" allegations in 02012.

As for coal power specifically, being polluting doesn't make it cheap; it's economically uncompetitive with both solar and wind, and in China specifically, the coal has to be imported from abroad, making it not just more expensive but also a national security risk.