Reaction to President Trump’s solar tariffs — Day 22 #100Days100Words

Today, President Trump gave his ruling on the Sunniva and SolarWorld suit affixing a 30% year-one tariff on imported solar cells and modules, declining by 5% per year over four years. This suit, brought about last summer had put the solar industry into a bit of a downturn with so many unknowns about how it could go.

The original complaint asked for a $0.48/W tariff, $0.70/W floor and an egregiously low limit on imports, well under current demand. This price would raise panel costs by 40–90% based on production numbers I’ve seen.

It’s going to harm the industry. We’ve already lost thousands of jobs and we’ll lose an estimated 23,000 more. The good news is that this represents less than a 10% increase in the installed cost of solar so will not act as any death blow to the industry. We now have certainty and with that we can begin to deploy capital for more installations across the US. Shine on!