T he U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) rolled a stink bomb into the solar sector when it unveiled indictments against five Chinese military personnel for cyber espionage on a number of U.S. firms, including SolarWorld.

According to the DOJ, in 2012, two of the alleged Chinese military hackers named in the indictment stole thousands of SolarWorld’s files, including business information, manufacturing metrics and legal documents relating to ongoing trade litigation. Such information would have enabled a Chinese competitor to target SolarWorld’s business operations aggressively from a variety of angles, the DOJ says.

SolarWorld has caused unhappiness on a transatlantic basis for its dogged pursuit of China-sourced manufacturers of photovoltaic modules. The saga has drawn EU and U.S. authorities into anti-dumping findings against Chinese PV manufacturers. The latest round has the U.S. Commerce Department investigating PV firms in China and Taiwan.

In the U.S., unhappiness stems from a widely held opinion that SolarWorld’s litigious activities could imperil the domestic solar sector. The Solar Foundation has shown that the most important driver in the expansion of solar sector jobs in the U.S. has been the precipitous drop in the cost of solar power - specifically the steep decline in the cost of solar panels. As it stands, the vast majority of those low-cost solar panels come from Chinese firms.

Most people in the U.S. who put up solar panels for a living, as well as those with a stake in solar development projects incorporating those panels, are desperate for the anti-dumping tariff issue to just go away. In February, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) pledged to publicly oppose SolarWorld’s latest trade petitions while offering informal legal advice to targeted firms. The advent of Chinese military hackers on the scene will not help SEIA’s considerable efforts to find a reasonable compromise.

“We are deeply troubled by allegations that Chinese military officials illegally hacked into our computer systems,” says a SolarWorld spokesperson. “It’s yet another example of the Chinese government’s systematic campaign to seek unfair advantage in the U.S. and global solar industry.”

It is going to be hard to clear the air. R