Solar firms are warning that petitions for new tariffs on imports of solar cells and modules from Asia have hurt business and threaten to upend the industry at a time when it needs all hands on deck to meet demand for renewable energy.
The Solar Energy Industries Association is leading a blitz against the petitions, which were filed in August by an anonymous group of companies identified as American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention, ahead of a decision by the Commerce Department about whether to consider the inquiries that could come as soon as Thursday.
“If allowed to proceed, these anonymous petitions would cripple the U.S. solar industry and ruin America’s plans to tackle climate change,” the solar group said in a fact sheet released Monday.
The petitions in question allege circumvention of standing anti-dumping and countervailing duties, or AD/CVD, on China by vendors in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand — an allegation that SEIA disputes.
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The petitioners argue that Chinese companies are supplying the capital and materials for solar products and passing them through affiliate factories in those countries to avoid duties on Chinese solar imports. Those products, which compete with U.S. manufacturers, are then sold to American solar firms for installation.
“Our solar installers shouldn’t be relying on dumped and subsidized Chinese products, and that’s what our petition says … that we shouldn’t be relying on product that is 90% made in China using dumping and subsidies, and then at the end is assembled somewhere else,” Tim Brightbill, an attorney representing the petitioners, said in an interview. “That should be subject to the same duties as a Chinese product.”
More than 190 solar companies recently wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo challenging the petitioners’ claim that assembly work on products in the targeted countries is “minor and insignificant” and that most of the manufacturing occurs in China, urging her to reject the ask.
“We cannot emphasize enough how damaging these tariffs would be to our companies and the entire American solar industry,” the letter said, raising the threat to jobs and their ability to help meet the Biden administration’s clean energy and climate change goals.
Representatives of several SEIA firms say business has already been affected, even before action from Commerce on the petitions.
“Just the submitting of this petition has essentially frozen the market,” George Hershman, president of Swinerton Renewable Energy, said in a call with reporters earlier this week. “We can’t get module manufacturers today to sign purchase orders that we need to deliver projects in the near term because of the concern over whether or not there’s going to be a 50% to a 250% tariff when those modules hit the port.”
SEIA has maintained that prospective duties on the materials in question range from 50% to 250%, although Brightbill said his clients didn’t ask for a particular percentage, only that current duties on most Chinese solar producers be extended to targeted companies. Those duties include a dumping rate of 0% to 14% and a subsidies rate of about 19%.
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Whatever the range, firms say the uncertainty will drive vendors away from the United States and to other markets.
“If the Commerce Department decides to take the case … you basically freeze for the next year, more or less, the whole market,” said Markus Wilhelm, CEO of Strata Clean Energy, referring to the 300-day period the department has to rule on the matter.
