Scottish Water has admitted that its solar farms could use components linked to forced labour camps in China, “in clear conflict” with its anti-slavery policies.
Scottish Water, a state-owned monopoly, has installed tens of thousands of solar panels it suspects are linked to Chinese slave labour at 66 sites around the country, bought for tens of millions of pounds.
They include a “super solar” scheme at its large water treatment works that supplies 565,000 people in the Glasgow area with drinking water. It said the 8,448 panels at Balmore in East Dunbartonshire, which treats water taken from Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, cost £5m.
The company, which supplies nearly all Scotland’s drinking water, said it will ban Chinese-made solar panels from its future projects, and strengthen its modern slavery rules, but it admitted that additional projects using them which are already under way will go ahead.
China has become the world’s largest supplier of photovoltaic solar panels, with about 40% of the global market, and its production has helped to dramatically drive down their cost.
Yet a significant proportion of Chinese supplies use a key component called polysilicon which is processed at factories accused of using forced labour camps in Xinjiang province where up to 2.6million Muslim Uyghurs and Kazakhs are interned.
China has been accused of the systemic oppression of the Uyghur minority, which human rights groups and MPs describe as genocidal ethnic cleansing – a charge the Chinese government denies.
Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University said in 2021 they had identified 90 Chinese and international firms whose supply chains were affected, and calculated that 45% of the world’s supply of solar-grade polysilicon came from the Uyghur region.
Chinese solar panel makers will use polysilicon from other sources but their customers are often unclear how much comes from forced labour sites. Scores of British public sector bodies which have built solar farms, including the Ministry of Defence, are thought to be affected.
Scottish Water has not named the companies which supply its solar panels but acknowledged it became aware two years ago they could be linked to slave labour but it did not decide to find alternative suppliers until earlier this year.
The political significance of the issue in Scotland grew in March when a Labour councillor in Glasgow, Soryia Siddique, challenged the city council to ensure its solar panels were not implicated in the forced labour controversy.
“Publicity since 2021 has shown that many supplies of solar-grade polysilicon across the world have been found to have links to forced labour and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang province of China,” Scottish Water said.
“As a result, global supply chains for solar panels have begun shifting away from a heavy reliance on products from this part of China.
“This obviously represents a clear conflict with modern slavery policy for supply chains using solar panels sourced from that region, including at Scottish Water.”
It admitted that it would continue installing panels it had already paid for. It said it had followed the prevailing government advice on ethical supply chains.
“We will therefore build out projects already under way, and then move to an ethical supply chain which means our solar panel production lines will come from new sources that have no links to modern slavery,” it said.
The UK’s solar industry is deeply embarrassed about the controversy, and will soon publish a new ethical supply chain strategy called the sustainable stewardship initiative with SolarPower Europe.
Siddique who is the deputy leader of Glasgow’s Labour group, said public bodies had to take action.
“It is often easier to simply complain about human rights abuses, than to take action to try to stop them,” she said.
She added it was important to embed green and humanitarian clauses in procurement policies and “send a strong message of solidarity in action with workers and oppressed communities across the world”.
