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Clean Technica: Trump Imposes 30% Imported Solar Tariff, Threatens 23,000 Jobs In 2018

Posted by Joshua Hill on Jan 23, 2018

This piece looks at the impact of tariffs on the solar industry, including price trends and perspective from AEE's Malcolm Woolf speaking on behalf of the Advanced Energy Buyers Group, a coalition of large energy buyers convened by AEE. You can read the entire piece here. Excerpts below:

After 9 months of uncertainty and vitriol, US President Donald Trump has decided this week to impose a 30% tariff on imported solar cells and modules in response to a Section 201 trade case filed by Suniva and SolarWorld back in April of 2017, a move which will likely cost 23,000 American jobs this year...

Chinese-owned and US-based solar manufacturer Suniva filed a Section 201 trade complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC). It was soon joined in the complaint by SolarWorld, and a month later the ITC accepted the complaint and began an Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Investigation.

Since then a near-consensus has built up that introducing tariffs on solar cells and modules would have a catastrophic cost to the US solar industry...

...The sheer threat of tariffs has already detrimentally impacted the US solar industry, with the cost of solar increasing for the first time in years. In October, GTM Research analyzed the potential impact of tariffs, and it was bad news all around...

“The President’s decision to impose 30 percent tariffs on imported solar cells and modules will have the unfortunate consequence of raising costs for downstream solar customers, including the growing number of leading companies that are sourcing their electricity from renewable resources,” said Malcolm Woolf, SVP of policy at Advanced Energy Economy, (AEE) a national business association, speaking on behalf of the Advanced Energy Buyers Group, a coalition of large energy users convened by AEE. “These cost increases will slow the growth of solar power, which has become an increasingly desirable option for corporate buyers. As they have said in official filings, price matters.”

See the entire Clean Technica story here

Topics: Press Releases