Wuxi Suntech will have to re-establish itself in the new super-sized US solar sector, an industry analyst has said.

Wuxi Suntech has agreed a deal with its former owner Suntech Power Holdings (SPH) that will see the latter distribute modules in the US and Europe. Wuxi Suntech went bankrupt and was sold to Shunfeng Photovoltaics by a court in China, but the deal is still not fully recognised by the liquidators of SPH.

Despite the complex and ongoing dispute between a number of subsidiaries, Wuxi Suntech is keen to re-establish itself as a force not just in China but in US and European markets too.

"It is impossible to deny that Suntech's brand and bankability have been significantly damaged in the US since early 2013, when news of Wuxi Suntech's bankruptcy first began to surface,” Shyam Mehta, lead upstream analyst at GTM Research told PV Tech.

“Meanwhile, Suntech's Chinese competitors have continued to grow their brand presence, customer portfolio and shipment volumes in the US in 2013, whether they be established US market leaders such as Trina, Yingli and Canadian, or newer entrants such as Jinko, JA and Renesola,” he added.

“In short, Suntech now finds itself considerably behind its Chinese peers in the US market, and may effectively have to start from scratch. It will take a combination of aggressive pricing, strong marketing and a sophisticated supply chain strategy for Suntech to return to its former glory days as concerns the US market,” said Mehta adding that the ongoing US-China trade case only made the challenge greater.

The resumption of substantial distribution activity in the US will provide some comfort for former customers.

“This is good news for O&M providers, given that Suntech was installed in a large number of commercial systems over the past five years,” said Michael Powers, VP sales and marketing at San Diego-based firm, Steller Solar. “It will be a relief for some of those facilities to know that Suntech will be now able to honour its product warranties for some time.

“That said, the market has changed significantly in the past two years and Suntech will be facing serious competition now, especially from SunEdison which has started tapping the residential marketplace and expects to have 300W modules on the market soon and also from LG which has high brand recognition and is now giving high-efficiency module maker Sunpower a run for its money,” he added.

The presence of an additional Chinese supplier could be welcomed by the booming US solar industry. GTM Research has predicted that imported Chinese module prices could increase by as much as20% this year.