SEIA report profiles US solar manufacturers, highlights potential impacts of Suniva and SolarWorld trade case

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) recently released a report profiling some of the U.S. solar manufacturers and emphasizing the impacts that a win by Suniva and SolarWorld in their trade case might have on those companies.

“The net impact is that the American solar industry will lose many more manufacturing jobs than it will gain from this ill-conceived trade case,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA, said. “The petitioners made bad business decisions during the biggest boom in American solar energy history. They are now being largely controlled by their creditors who are looking for a bailout from their investments in poorly run companies. Plain and simple, these companies are not worthy of an injury finding.”

The First Edition of Profiles in American Solar Manufacturing tells the stories of some of the 600 American solar industry manufacturers that make steel and polysilicon, inverters and trackers, cabling and combiner boxes, cells and panels and racking and mounting systems.

In the report, many of these manufacturers said that they would have to cut jobs if Suniva and SolarWorld receive the proposed trade relief.

“It is going to be very damaging to the progress of the solar industry,” James Worden, CEO of Solectria Renewables LLC, said. “It will result in cancellation of innumerable solar projects as investors pull out of their deals and there will be a loss of thousands of well-paying jobs.”