Trina warns delayed China FiT payments may stall solar investments - report

China’s Trina Solar Ltd (NYSE:TSL) fears that if governmental incentives for solar power keep on coming much later than expected, this would put off many sector investors and consequently hurt the industry, its CFO told Bloomberg on Thursday.

Both wind and solar project developers in China are receiving less than promised due to complicated application procedures and an inconsistency between incentive levels and electricity bill surcharges used to fund the subsidies, according to the report. Apart from hurting the cash flows of renewable energy firms in China, this could also cause international investors to lose interest in the market and turn to more attractive and stable green energy destinations, Trina's finance head Teresa Tan told the new agency.

The Chinese photovoltaic (PV) maker itself is suffering delays in subsidy payments, which could even stretch beyond the set period of 12 months. Still, Trina expects to put on stream up to 800 MW of solar parks at home this year.

All in all, China’s feed-in tariff programme may be falling short by between CNY 30 billion (USD 4.71bn/EUR 4.17bn) and CNY 40 billion, according to August data by the government’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation.

(CNY 1.0 = USD 0.157/EUR 0.139)

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