In less than two decades, Chinese-owned companies went from producing less than 2% of solar cells globally in 2004 to near total market domination in every component part of a solar panel today. The U.S. is overly dependent on an adversary that has capitalized on the energy transition by making clean energy manufacturing a national priority and has demonstrated its willingness to weaponize our supply chain reliance in the past.
China controls over 80% of the world’s polysilicon, wafer, cell, and module manufacturing capacity and Chinese-owned companies make over 99% of solar wafers. We are one pandemic or one international dispute away from not having access to solar and in turn not achieving our climate targets. If these companies secure a monopoly of the solar market, they will have full discretion over market pricing, destroying healthy competition.
Many American industries use antidumping/countervailing duties cases to guard against illegal foreign trade practices. All kinds of manufactured products are under dumping orders, everything from steel to wood products to chemicals and more. There are more than 670 dumping orders currently in effect: In the last two years industries such as mattresses, paper shopping bags, and wine bottles, among others, have filed trade petitions with the U.S. government.
The Solar Energy Manufacturers for America’s recent report showed that a current glut of solar imports will only worsen in 2024, projecting that stockpiling will be 2.4 times the expected demand. With tariffs, the projected oversupply is 91,600 MW of solar. Without tariffs, it is projected to hit a whopping 102,400 MW of solar. Even with tariffs, there will be more than enough solar available to meet the projected 2024 demand of 38,700 MW.
In the first quarter of 2024, solar panels prices are down more than 50% “with no end in sight.” While low prices may seem attractive, these are artificially low and unsustainable for American manufacturers. If China secures a monopoly of the solar market, they will have full discretion over market pricing, destroying healthy competition.
Solar is the cheapest it has ever been. According to a 2023 BNEF report, the price of standard solar modules hit an all-time low of 16.5 cents/watt in August 2023, and without relief, prices are expected to fall further.
Global spot markets are important indicators of where U.S. prices are headed. A public PV Insights report shows that solar PV module spot prices are as low as 10 cents/watt in China.
The United States installed a record 32.4 GW of solar energy in 2023, a 51% increase from 2022.
Total U.S. solar capacity is expected to grow to 673 GW by 2034, enough to power more than 100 million homes.
According to a study by Dartmouth University, Princeton University, and the Blue Green Alliance, if all U.S. developers sourced 55% of their manufactured solar goods domestically, the solar manufacturing industry would support 900,000 jobs by 2035. That is a significant increase from the estimated 34,000 solar manufacturing jobs in the U.S. today.
Market leaders Convalt Energy, First Solar, Meyer Berger, Mission Solar, Qcells, REC Silicon, and Swift Solar are leading companies in the 34,000-worker strong solar manufacturing industry, with plans to add tens of thousands more good paying, long term jobs to the U.S. economy in the coming years.
According to Cornell, onshoring solar manufacturing in the U.S. could cut climate pollution from solar manufacturing by 30% and cut energy use by 13% simply because our grid is cleaner than our global competitors.
The first antidumping/countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case covered nearly $2.5 billion in solar imports from China. In contrast, solar imports from Chinese companies via Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam total $12.5 billion.
