US solar trade group warns tariff case to erase 24 GW of planned additions in 2022, 2023

The forecasts for solar capacity installations in the US in 2022 and 2023 are being reduced by 46%, or a total of 24 GW, as a result of the circumvention case against solar imports from Southeast Asia, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said on Wednesday.

The solar industry installed 23.6 GW DC of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the whole of 2021.

According to a SEIA survey among more than 700 respondents, 318 projects representing 51 GW of solar capacity and 6 GWh of collocated battery storage are being cancelled or delayed, jeopardising USD 52 billion (EUR 49bn) of private investment. More than 200 companies say that all of their staff is at risk and 70% of respondents think at least half their solar and storage jobs are at risk.

“If tariffs are imposed, in the blink of an eye we’re going to lose 100,000 American solar workers and any hope of reaching the President’s clean energy goals,” warned SEIA president and chief executive Abigail Ross Hopper.

At the end of March, the US Department of Commerce decided to open an investigation into whether solar imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are circumventing tariffs on Chinese cells and modules.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.945)

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