The solar industry has barely entered 2026 when it has already felt a long-absent chill. A series of policy and market signals have combined to leave many practitioners exclaiming ‘the pressure is immense’.

Looking back to late 2025, news of ‘abolishing peak-off-peak electricity pricing for PV’ dominated market discussions. Though later proven to be a significant misinterpretation, this controversy prematurely cast a shadow over the industry’s 2026 outlook. The real impact, however, arrived after the New Year officially commenced.

I. Photovoltaics is Entering a Completely Different Era

Entering 2026, the industry faced two heavy blows delivered almost simultaneously.

On one front, confirmation that market regulators had summoned photovoltaic enterprises to discuss monopoly risks significantly dampened earlier market optimism about the rapid advancement of ‘anti-internal competition’ measures. The regulatory signals were clear: combating internal competition must not involve price-fixing cartels, nor constitute disguised monopolistic practices; industry rectification must operate within defined boundaries and with measured standards.

More substantially, the export tax rebate policy underwent transformative changes.

On 8 January 2026, the Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration announced:

From 1 April 2026, VAT export rebates for photovoltaic products would be abolished;

The rebate rate for cell products would be reduced from 9% to 6% within 2026;

From 2027 onwards, export rebates for cell products would be entirely eliminated.

For a photovoltaic industry already mired in a loss cycle, this undoubtedly amounts to adding insult to injury. Having pinned hopes on countering internal competition to restore self-sustaining capacity, the sector now faces heightened export costs, casting renewed uncertainty over when it might reach bottom.

II. The Cancellation of Export Tax Rebates Is Not an Unforeseen Black Swan Event

Emotions aside, examining the policy logic reveals that the cancellation of export tax rebates was not entirely unexpected.

As early as November 2024, the export tax rebate rate for photovoltaic and battery products was reduced from 13% to 9%, clearly signalling a policy shift towards gradual reduction. From this perspective, the complete abolition in 2026 appears more as a continuation of the established trajectory rather than an abrupt reversal.

Over the past two decades, the photovoltaic industry has received what could be termed ‘epic’ levels of policy and capital support:

Subsidies totalling hundreds of billions of yuan;

Cumulative secondary market financing long surpassing one trillion yuan;

Establishing globally leading advantages across multiple segments including modules, cells, and inverters.

Looking back today, this once meticulously nurtured industry has matured into a core force within the global renewable energy supply chain. Continued reliance on tax rebates and subsidies inherently contradicts the developmental logic of a mature industry.

Compounded by pressures on local finances and the downturn in the property cycle, the withdrawal of tax rebates is fundamentally a matter of timing, not direction.

III. The True Test Lies Beyond Tax Rebates

In the short term, enterprises face a window of practical decision-making.

Before April 2026, should they accelerate export pace?

If tax rebates still cover costs and improve cash flow, the natural choice is to ‘export as much as possible.’

However, if losses persist even with rebates, whether to push for volume or proactively scale back requires more cautious judgement.

Yet more significant than this three-month window is the long-term question after rebates are fully phased out.

The future photovoltaic industry will truly enter a ‘post-subsidy era’:

Will cyclical volatility diminish?

How should enterprises navigate the next cycle?

Should they persist with vertical integration or revert to specialised division of labour?

Amid rising geopolitical uncertainty, is overseas expansion still imperative, and how should it be pursued?

With N-type technology pathways yet to converge and perovskite still under development, how should R&D investments be prioritised?

These questions have no standard answers, yet every enterprise must address them.

IV. From ‘Scale Competition’ to ‘Capability Competition’: The Industry Logic is Shifting

In this round of consolidation, models relying solely on scale expansion are gradually becoming obsolete.

Enterprises poised for greater stability in the future typically possess three capabilities:

Cost control capability: encompassing not only manufacturing costs but also system integration and operational efficiency;

Technology integration capability: evolving from standalone PV to comprehensive solutions integrating ‘PV + energy storage + dispatch’;

Market adaptability: the capacity to swiftly respond to policy shifts and regional variations.

Take HuiJue Technology’s approach as an example: its overseas expansion no longer centres on exporting standalone equipment, but rather delivers comprehensive energy solutions tailored to application scenarios such as photovoltaic-storage systems, mobile energy storage, and commercial/industrial storage. This trajectory of ‘reduced subsidy dependency and enhanced system value’ epitomises corporate transformation in the new cycle.

2026: Not an Endpoint, but a Watershed

The abolition of export tax rebates does not signify the collapse of the photovoltaic industry’s ‘innocent world’.

What truly crumbles is the outdated growth logic heavily reliant on policy dividends.

2026 serves more as a watershed:

On one side, production capacity unable to adapt to new rules will be gradually phased out;

On the other, enterprises that have upgraded their technology, costs, and business models will re-establish their foothold.

Photovoltaics remains a sector with long-term certainty, but it is no longer a ‘sure-win’ track.

The future belongs to those who are truly prepared.