The Trump administration is imposing tariffs up to 30% on imports of solar equipment.
The measure is aimed directly at China who has been dumping cheap, subsidized solar panels on the US for a decade. The US had imposed anti-dumping tariffs, but China got around them by opening subsidized factories in Vietnam, Malaysia, and other Asian countries.
The $28 billion US solar industry is up in arms over the new tariffs since about 80% of parts come from overseas. But the goal here is to jump-start the expansion of US manufacturing of solar panels.
“We are inclined to view it as posing greater trade risk for all types of energy, particularly if other nations establish new trade barriers against U.S. products,” Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC said Monday.
U.S. panel maker First Solar Inc. jumped as much as 9 percent to $75.20 in after-hours trading in New York. The Tempe, Arizona-based manufacturer stands to gain as costs for competing, foreign panels rise.
Just the threat of tariffs shook solar developers in recent months, with some hoarding panels and others stalling projects in anticipation of higher costs. The Solar Energy Industries Association projected 23,000 job losses this year in a sector that employed 260,000.
Trump approved four years of tariffs that start at 30 percent in the first year and gradually drop to 15 percent. The first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells are exempt for each year.
The duties are lower than the 35 percent rate the U.S. International Trade Commission recommended in October after finding that imported panels were harming American manufacturers. The idea behind the tariffs is to raise the costs of cheap imports, particularly from Asia, and level the playing field for those who manufacture the parts domestically.
“This is not a goodbye for renewable energy in the U.S.,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I don’t believe this decision will reverse the solar expansion in the U.S. The global solar industry will adjust. The penetration of solar in the U.S. will continue.”
First Solar is the largest of a handful of panel makers left in the U.S. after most of the industry migrated to China in the past decade. That means the major impact of the duties will be on panel installers, which get most of their supplies from Chinese companies.
More than half of US solar imports come from China (8%), Vietnam (9%), and Malaysia (36%).
Those who oppose the tariffs don’t dispute that subsidized imports are hurting US solar manufacturers, but it harms the goal of vastly expanding renewable sources of energy.
In short, we should go green even if it means the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
The folly of that thinking is that Chinese dumping has already largely destroyed the solar industry in America and tariffs will help level the playing field for the survivors and will probably spur the creation of new solar ventures.
China is by far the largest manufacturer of solar equipment in the world. Why not, when the government heavily subsidizes the companies making them?
The question is should the US or any other solar manufacturers in the world be forced to compete with companies located in China or owned by the Chinese government that can afford to sell the equipment below cost because of the massive loans given them by Chinese banks?
In a word, it’s unfair. And the tariffs, which may hurt some American companies in the short term, will present opportunities for other companies to get in the solar game.
Creative destruction, anyone?
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The cost of our government will always be a disadvantage .
China has money in the bank, we’re paying interest.
I doubt that Chinese workers will ever see our wages and salaries either .
This is a climate change issue because of the nature of the product, but it is a much bigger issue in general. China is applying unfair trade policies on many products. This has included keeping their currency exchange artificially low so their products would be cheaper. Yes, we do pay less for Chinese merchandise as a result and we all have benefited in one way or another. The cost paying less is that jobs that should be in this country are in China. It is better to pay a little more and help the employment situation.
All the tariff does is force Americans to pay more for inferior products and allow U.S rent-seekers to sell an inferior product; never having to produce one that competes.
PV is a ludicrous waste of time from the perspective of reliable, dispatchable energy sources. If our authoritarian government is going to impose those stupid things on us, at least we should get them as cheaply as possible. If China is “subsidizing” their solar panels, then at least they are making the Chinese people pay for this disaster, not us.
Lets do the same with cheaply made wind turbines all this so called Green Energy poppycock these bird frying solar panels need to be banned