Clean energy leaders said the investigation — which could result in retroactive tariffs as high as 240% — would severely hinder the U.S. solar industry, leading to thousands of layoffs and imperiling as many as 80% of the planned solar projects in the U.S. Such an outcome would jeopardize one of Biden’s top clean energy goals and run counter to his administration’s push for renewable energy such as wind and solar power.
“Overnight, the Commerce Department ... drove a stake through the heart of planned solar projects and choked off up to 80% of the solar panel supply to the U.S.,” she said, adding that Biden ”must fix this now.” Auxin Solar CEO Mamun Rashid said he was grateful that Commerce officials recognized the need to investigate what he called the “pervasive backdoor dumping” of solar panels by China. Solar manufacturers in smaller Asian countries use parts produced by Chinese companies as a way to keep costs down while skirting steep anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs on Chinese goods, he said.
Biden’s Feb. 4 announcement continued many Trump-era tariffs, but he exempted so-called bifacial solar panels that can generate electricity on both sides and are now used in many large solar projects. The technology was still emerging when the tariffs were first imposed by Trump.Biden also doubled an import quota on solar cells — the main components of panels that go on rooftops and utility sites — to 5 gigawatts, allowing a greater number of imported cells used by domestic manufacturers.
“The more we rely on other countries to make things for us, the more vulnerable we become to supply chain disruptions like we have seen over the past two years,” she said March 15, adding that “at least 95% of the market for the cells that go into solar panels is estimated to have components that were produced in China.”