The EU needs renewables to curb Russian fossil fuel dependence. For these, it's dependent on China.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has exposed the European Union's dependence on Russian fossil fuels and accelerated the bloc's transition into renewables.
But while no country has a monopoly on the sun and wind, the EU is highly dependent on China for the technology to capture their power.
More than 80% of the world's supply of photovoltaic modules produced yearly since 2010 have been manufactured in Asia. China alone supplied 67% of the module production in 2020, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
In fact, eight of the world's 10 biggest solar panel companies and manufacturers are now Chinese with Canadian Solar and the US company First Solar occupying the eighth and 10th places respectively.
In wind, European companies still have an edge with Denmark's Vestas and the Spanish-German Siemens Gamesa on the podium's two top rungs while Germany's Nordex ranks as the eighth biggest manufacturer worldwide.
But China is also quickly gaining ground with six of its companies included in the top ten.
Beijing's control over the renewable sector is now felt throughout the entire supply chain. About 80% of the components needed to manufacture a wind turbine are produced in China as are 97% of the silicon wafers necessary to build a solar panel.
Forty-five percent of the world's production of polysilicon, a key raw material in the solar photovoltaic supply chain, is produced in Xinjiang, the region in north-west China where the Chinese regime is accused by the US government of carrying out a genocide against the Uighur Muslim minority.
China is also a key player in other raw materials including rare earth minerals that go into renewable technologies. More than 70% of the lithium-ion batteries that entered the
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