The impartial panel voted unanimously to proceed an investigation into producers in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam for promoting photo voltaic cells within the US market beneath value in an try and curb home manufacturing. That set the stage for the Commerce Department to use hefty tariffs to most photo voltaic cell imports from these international locations, following separate tariffs imposed Thursday on producers from in the identical 4 international locations discovered to be serving to to keep away from tariffs on Chinese-made photo voltaic cells. .
But the transfer to extend the tariffs has divided the US photo voltaic business. Companies that assemble U.S. photo voltaic panels utilizing foreign-made cells say there aren’t sufficient home cell crops to provide what’s a booming business of locations like Houston and Dallas. At the identical time the progress in constructing utility-scale photo voltaic farms in locations like West Texas is predicated largely on the supply of low cost photo voltaic cells from Asia.
“It injects a stage of uncertainty when you’ve gotten a negotiated settlement on the (electrical energy) value after which rapidly there is a rise in the price of photo voltaic cells,” stated Jeff Clark, president of the Austin-based Advanced Power Alliance, which represents photo voltaic and wind builders. “It might be distracting.”
The ITC case was introduced in April by a small group of producers that began making photo voltaic cells at house, led by South Korea-based Hanwha Qcells and Arizona-based First Solar, which claimed the flood of low cost photo voltaic cells from overseas was proscribing their potential to remain in enterprise.
“This renaissance in manufacturing is threatened by China’s industrial coverage, which has led to large subsidies in China and Southeast Asia. This has resulted in a excessive quantity of dumping in world markets, together with the US” Tim Brightbill, a lawyer of the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, stated in a press release on the time.
The corporations are calling for tariffs on photo voltaic cells from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia starting from 70% to 271%, though the Commerce Department can select any tariff it sees match.
The petition was opposed by a lot of the US photo voltaic sector, with commerce teams the Solar Energy Association and the American Clean Power Association warning earlier this yr that it was a “potential menace to the institution of a home photo voltaic provide chain.”
In an ITC listening to final month, Canadian Solar, which has began manufacturing at a $250 million photo voltaic panel plant exterior Dallas, accused Hanwha of making an attempt to remove competitors for the photo voltaic cell plant. which it based in Georgia.
“The rising home business wants photo voltaic cells from Southeast Asia to help US manufacturing operations,” stated Jonathan Stoel, the lawyer representing Canadian Solar. “These operations make use of hundreds of Americans and fulfill the wants of American clients – together with mission builders – who’re thirsty for extra solar energy.”