President Biden is giving the domestic solar panel manufacturing market a break from tariffs on imported solar cells with the latest announcement from the White House.
The president has modified actions taken earlier this year on tariffed crystalline silicon solar (CSPV) imports by increasing the amount of silicon solar cells that can enter the country tariff-free to 12.5 GW. The tariff-rate quota (TRQ) on solar cells under Sec. 201 of the 1974 Trade Act had previously been set at 5 GW.
“I have determined that expected domestic module production and associated imports of CSPV cells have increased such that it is necessary to modify the action taken…by expanding the TRQ to unchanging within-quota quantities of 12.5 GW,” the president said in his latest proclamation.
Imports of solar cells increased significantly in Q2 2024, with monthly imports exceeding 1 GW for the first time in May. After only importing 3.6 GW of silicon cells in 2023, U.S. panel assemblers surpassed the 5-GW TRQ in June 2024 when imports hit 5.2 GW for the year.
Under the Sec. 201 tariffs, all imported solar cells and panels (regardless of country of origin, except for a few minor exceptions) are currently tariffed at 14.25% as a way to protect domestic solar panel manufacturers from cheaper product coming from overseas. Both monofacial and bifacial solar cells and panels are tariffed. But now, the first 12.5 GW of solar cells imported can come through tariff-free.
Domestic panel manufacturers Hanwha Qcells, First Solar, Heliene, Suniva, Silfab, Crossroads Solar, Mission Solar and Auxin Solar petitioned the government earlier this year to extend the Sec. 201 tariffs and include bifacial panels in the order. Some of the petitioners requested a 20-GW TRQ, but the Biden Administration dialed it back to 12.5 GW.
With more domestic solar panel assemblers coming online this year, more solar cells will need to be imported to make completed panels. Until solar cell manufacturing is established in the country, of which there are currently no outfits online, panel assemblers are dependent on imported cells.
“Bumping the (TRQ) up is as disingenuous as California’s early solar PV push of “Capping” the number of MWh installed, then turning around and “raising the cap”. For me the “program” was political grand standing in perpituity. The electric utility industry is trying very hard to slow down and regulate, private solar PV adoption unless it is a company “crafterd program”. The promises of the past are the voices of the past and sound like” “nuclear energy, too cheap to meter”, with regulatory considerations became a lie the industry has swept under the ‘rug’. Now early solar PV adoptors in California say from 1997 to 2010 were well aware with the electric utility industry crying about the “duck curve” Solar PV could be too cheap to meter.
Now with the California mandate train further down the track, one has requirements to add solar PV to new construction, redefine NEM calling (it) NEM 3.0, which kills the one to one energy credit, brings down excess energy to the wholesale cost credit level and basically foists Net Billing as the de facto operation moving forward. The PSPS and battery back up considerations now pushing resiliency is creating the packaged system of solar PV + Battery storage.
Programs and mandates are creating multiple “callers” of a square dance where a cadre of drunken sailors on shore leave are trying to listen to six different “callers” to “dance” in syncronicity. The NEM 3.0 combined with the wholesale rate of energy per kWh is devoured by the TOU rate spiking periods typically from 4 PM to 9 PM each day. Battery back up systems become onerous if one moves past the 20kWh ‘consideration’ of NFPA 855. The ‘cost’ of LFP has come down to a point that one can afford a large home battery pack for energy management and resiliency control of their systems. Disparate AHJ entities, foisting soft costs on consumers is keeping alive the high cost of Solar PV and BESS.