SEIA warns anonymously proposed tariffs could stunt solar development

Balking at tariffs proposed by an anonymous group of petitioners to raise duties 50-250 percent on imports of photovoltaic panels from abroad, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) warned this week that such moves could obliterate plans for 18 GW of solar deployment by 2023.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, SEIA claimed that such tariffs threaten to obliterate both the burgeoning U.S. clean energy market and the nation’s climate progress. After all, the 18 GW of predicted lost solar deployment would be equal to all U.S. solar capacity installed prior to 2015.

“I cannot overstate the dire threat that these reckless petitions are imposing on hundreds of thousands of American families,” Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA president and CEO, backed by more than 190 American solar companies, said. “The anonymous petitioners are asking the Department of Commerce to not only misinterpret U.S. law, but also overturn a decade of department decisions in solar trade cases, all to benefit a few anonymous petitioners at the expense of the entire U.S. solar economy. We urge Commerce to use its discretion and dismiss these frivolous petitions.”

While those warning against the move include manufacturers, developers, installers, financiers and service providers from across the solar supply chain, the aforementioned, anonymous pro-tariff petitions called specifically for duties on imports of panels and cells from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. The logic behind that call were allegations that some companies were evading antidumping and countervailing duties imposed on China, using the three countries in question merely to pass on equipment actually made in China.

While the petitioners dismissed manufacturing capabilities in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand as minor and insignificant, the three countries in question now account for 80 percent of all panel imports to the U.S.

Wood Mackenzie recently forecast the U.S. could install approximately 30 GW of new solar capacity in 2022 and 33 GW in 2023, if nothing goes awry. Those figures are already short of amounts needed to meet President Joe Biden’s decarbonization goals by 2035, the solar industry argued, and adding further duties would all but annihilate any chances, in addition to raising solar prices and further stressing the supply chain.

The solar industry requested the claims be dismissed, arguing that under the law, the targeted nations cannot be subject to AD/CVD circumvention claims.