That only happened after China started eating their (and Japan's) lunch. There's a great old chart which shows this:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_Largest_Producers_...

Right around that time Germany's solar boom started in earnest:

https://www.statista.com/chart/2397/solar-power-made-massive...

Which was powered largely by Chinese panels. Since we can't have nice things, tariffs were imposed:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_13_...