New Delhi, July 18 -- Major U.S. solar companies First Solar, Qcells, Talon PV, and Mission Solar formally asked the U.S. Commerce Department to impose heavy fees on solar panel imports from Indonesia, India, and Laos.

Their July 11 petition claims manufacturers in these countries sell panels below fair value, a practice called "dumping", while receiving illegal government subsidies.

The group, called the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, previously won similar tariffs against Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand earlier this year.

The alliance argues manufacturers simply relocated from tariff-hit Southeast Asian nations to Indonesia and Laos to continue "flooding the U.S. market with artificially cheap panels"....