USA Solar Import Tariffs

[Skotty]

Beware possible increase in solar panel prices.

Uncertainty Grips Solar as Industry Awaits Trump's Tariff Ruling

My wife and I are thinking of moving our solar install up to this fall instead of next spring as originally planned to make sure we don't get bitten by this.

If it were up to me, if a fair case could be made that foreign countries were subsidizing their solar to get a leg up on American manufacturers, I would simply subsidize American manufacturers by a similar amount. Promote solar! But our administration is more interested in bringing back coal. Solar is only good for walls.

 

[hockeythug]

Beware possible increase in solar panel prices.

Uncertainty Grips Solar as Industry Awaits Trump's Tariff Ruling

My wife and I are thinking of moving our solar install up to this fall instead of next spring as originally planned to make sure we don't get bitten by this.

If it were up to me, if a fair case could be made that foreign countries were subsidizing their solar to get a leg up on American manufacturers, I would simply subsidize American manufacturers by a similar amount. Promote solar! But our administration is more interested in bringing back coal. Solar is only good for walls.

I get what you are saying about fighting fire with fire but price dumping, which what is happening, is illegal. Is better to handle it through the proper channels.

 

[Merrill]

Why not take all those coal employees and have them manufacture solar panels right here in the good old USA!

 

[SageBrush]

If it were up to me, if a fair case could be made that foreign countries were subsidizing their solar to get a leg up on American manufacturers,

While the anti Alt-energy forces in the US worked very hard to torpedo a domestic industry. Remember all the political ink spilled with regards to Solyndra as part of a lobby to hinder further federal support of new technology ? Have we forgotten the mountain of domestic propaganda against PV, how it was too expensive and failed technology ? How about the incessant propaganda against CSP and plants like Ivanpah ?

China has had its share of failed PV companies too, but they kept on supporting the nascent industry via cheap money and domestic demand.

It is easy to blame the Chinese, but the US handed them the PV industry on a silver platter. Germany has a much better gripe; the Americans are just engaged in a cover-up of their short-sightedness, and now an attempt to prop up fossil fuels through trade barriers.

Trump gets to pick now between jobs and coal.

 

[McRat]

China is not our friend. They know that solar PV production will be a large industry with solid profits.

So if they have to destroy US production to dominate it, and it cost them $50 billion to do it, it's a bargain in the long run.

Remember that when you have a system that permits dumping, the consumer pays more in the long run. Any doubt? Look at the price of Japanese Motorcycles after the dumping was outlawed. They cost what other nation's bikes do, and as much as small cars in the US.

 

[gene]

Batteries, inverters, solar cells safe from Section 301 tariffs
Batteries, inverters, solar cells safe from Section 301 tariffs

With the Trump Administration, clean energy never knows where the blows are going to land. Some of the administration’s moves to prop up coal and nuclear power can be somewhat tangential to renewable energy, however the administration’s trade action on solar cells and modules as well as steel and aluminum products has been anything but tangential.

Today the office of the U.S. Trade Representative issued a list of over 1,000 items imported from China that may be subject to import duties or other trade sanctions under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

To the great relief of inverter makers, inverters were not on the list, nor were solar cells and modules. This was despite substantial testimony by SolarWorld detailing alleged IP theft of passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) technology by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) agents, for which these PLA agents were indicted by a grand jury in 2014.

Item 85065000 “lithium primary cells and primary batteries”, is listed. However, trade expert John Smirnow has confirmed to pv magazine that this excludes rechargeable lithium-ion batteries such as are used in electric vehicles and energy storage to accompany solar PV.

 

[SageBrush]

I'm not following.
Are you suggesting that a run-around for the PV industry is possible, or that trump's bluff was called ?

 

[McRat]

I'm not following.
Are you suggesting that a run-around for the PV industry is possible, or that trump's bluff was called ?

It would be very difficult to tell what US policy actually is. For the time being, it will always be about one citizen of the entire nation, not what is best for the n-1 of the US. You are not going to have access to the facts without considerable effort and perhaps FOIA requests.

ie - If the current POTUS is pro-Solar, the news will read that is the wrong policy. If the POTUS is anti-Solar, the news will read that is wrong policy. You will be provided in either case with facts, data, graphs, interviews, PhD opinions, supporting the narrative. We have crippled our nation willingly by operating our media with zero accountability for a 'just cause'. If a news story had a 50% chance of starting a nuclear war, the first question would not be 'is this information correct' but whether it would make the POTUS look bad. It's not a tough decision today. Destroy first, worry about consequences later.