US takes further action to boost solar makers, ends bifacial exclusion

The Biden Administration on Thursday announced further action to support American solar manufacturing, including the removal of the bifacial module exclusion under Section 201 and providing additional guidance on the domestic content bonus.

In addition, as previously indicated, a temporary, 24-month bridge for duty-free imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam will end as scheduled on June 6, 2024. Producers in those Southeast Asian nations that have been found to be circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar manufacturers will be subject to those duties. The purpose of the bridge period was to allow US sector players to ramp up.

The new measures come a few days after the US government announced increases in tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 across strategic sectors, with the tariff rate on solar cells, whether or not assembled into modules, doubling from 25% to 50%.

Today’s White House announcement says that recently “China has further ramped up solar overcapacity, dumping artificially cheap modules and components onto the global market and circumventing trade enforcement measures in an attempt to put other countries’ manufacturers out of business.”

The government plans to imminently eliminate the bifacial module exclusion under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974, which was implemented by the previous administration and has led to a surge in imports of bifacial panels and the undermining of the Section 201 safeguard for US solar manufacturers from unfair imports.

The Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition commended the Biden administration for closing this “loophole.”

“Lifting the exemption reinstates a 15% tariff, providing important, but sadly still insufficient, relief from anti-competitive trade practices until the tariff is set to expire in February 2026,” said SEMA executive director Mike Carr.

The Biden Administration also intends to crack down on stockpiling and to monitor import surges and oversupply.

“We look forward to working with Customs and Border Protection to help craft a robust anti-stockpiling enforcement plan and are pleased to see their recognition of this burgeoning problem in today’s actions,” SEMA’s Mike Carr said.

At the same time, the tariff-rate quota for solar cells under Section 201, currently at 5 GW, could be increased to protect domestic module manufacturing growth while production throughout the supply chain is scaled up.

With respect to the domestic content bonus under the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House said the further guidance aims to enable more clean energy developers and manufacturers in the US to take advantage of the bonus. According to the announcement, it creates a new elective safe harbor giving clean energy developers the option of relying on Department of Energy-provided default cost percentages to determine bonus eligibility.

“The added clarity on the domestic content bonus credit has been a top SEIA priority because it’s crucial to give manufacturers the certainty they need to invest in American communities. We appreciate the administration’s approach to making sure this bonus credit helps downstream manufacturers in the near term as we ramp up production of upstream components over the next several years,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

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