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Huawei's market power recently allowed it to make its way back into SolarPower Europe, the solar sector's most prominent lobby association in Brussels, despite an ongoing Belgian bribery investigation focused on the firm's lobbying activities in Brussels that saw it banned from meeting with European Commission and Parliament officials.
Huawei declined to comment about its role in Europe. Brussels last year also launched a probe into uncompetitive practices by Chinese solar panel manufacturers, which resulted in two companies withdrawing their bids in a Romanian public tender last year. Workers in the autonomous region of Ningxia carry solar panels on their backs to a solar farm.
Such restrictions would target Huawei first and foremost, as the dominant Chinese supplier of critical parts of these systems. The fears center around solar panel inverters, a piece of technology that turns solar panels' electricity into current that flows into the grid.
Awash with Chinese solar panels and parts made by companies such as Huawei Technologies, Europe is increasingly concerned about the safety of its power infrastructure, especially as its energy transition has led to the digitalization of the sector, making it vulnerable to remote attacks.