Western solar panel makers are seeing a surge in U.S. demand after duties were slapped on rival products from Asia. Germany's biggest solar panel maker SolarWorld said around half of its panels were currently been snapped up by U.S. customers. "Demand in the United States has exploded," Chief Executive Frank Asbeck told Reuters. His comments chime with those of Luc Grare, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Oslo-listed REC Solar . "For 2015, we've already sold 44 percent of our total capacity of 1.2 gigawatts to the United States," Grare said. The United States in July set new import duties on solar products from China and Taiwan after the Commerce Department found that solar panels and cells were being sold too cheaply on the U.S. market. "There is fair competition in the U.S. market again," Asbeck said. SolarWorld, which normally makes about a third of its sales in the United States, has campaigned against Chinese panel makers for years, claiming they're flooding global markets with cheap products and pushing out Western rivals. The United States is expected to account for more than 14 percent of the global market this year, according to UBS analysts, making it the third biggest after China and Japan. Germany, expected to install 2,500 megawatts of capacity this year, ranks fourth. (Reuters)