China’s Solar Power Dominance and Trump’s Trade Tariffs

What are the consequences of the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign-made solar cells?

History of Solar Trade Tariffs



Import tariffs levied against Chinese solar products are nothing new. Based on an investigation in 2012, the International Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) determined that Chinese manufacturers received imbalanced subsidies from the Chinese government, and that U.S. manufacturers were subsequently harmed by the Chinese products being dumped on the U.S. market. The DOC accordingly set duties averaging 31 percent on solar products imported from China.

However, using a loophole in the final ruling, Chinese manufacturers circumvented the duties by importing cells manufactured in other countries, primarily Taiwan, and then assembling the modules in China. Following another petition and investigation, the loophole was closed with another round of import duties in 2014.

To continue expanding on this success, the government introduced a feed-in tariff (FIT) for solar PV for the first time in 2011, which remains the primary tool for encouraging domestic PV installations. The FIT legally established a set price at which renewable energy must be purchased from producers. The price is set higher than that of coal to encourage development. The implementation of the FIT has coincided with unprecedented domestic PV growth in China. When implemented in 2011, cumulative solar PV installations in China totaled 3.3 gigawatts (GW); by the end of 2016, China’s installation total stood at 76.5 GW. The next year, China redefined the pace of PV deployment, installing 52.83 GW of solar PV in 2017 alone, accounting for over half of all solar installed worldwide that year.

Why the New Tariffs?

Interestingly enough, the two businesses that initially filed the petition for tariffs, Suniva and SolarWorld America, are foreign-owned companies, but have manufacturing operations in the United States. At the same time, the American company SunPower manufactures modules overseas, which are now subject to import tariffs. Due to the tariffs, SunPower announced plans to halt $20 million in planned American investments.   

In terms of jobs, as of 2016, the U.S. solar industry employed just over 260,000 people. Well over half of these jobs are in the installation sector. With the manufacturing processes increasingly automated, the United States is home to just 2,000 solar cell and panel manufacturing jobs, yet the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimates that the new tariffs will cost the American solar industry 23,000 jobs.

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What past experience tells us about the impact of new American solar tariffs

Solar tariffs are actually not new for the United States. In 2012, the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a duty on solar cells from China. Later, in 2015, the ITC imposed another penalty on solar cells imported from Taiwan. The ITC claimed in both cases that an industry in the U.S. was being materially injured by imports of solar cells and modules from these countries. American manufacturers were hurt by falling prices of solar products as a result of a flood of Chinese solar products. Since 2011, numerous manufacturers including Solyndra, Helios USA, and BP Solar closed their U.S. production facilities.

Yet the tariffs imposed did not really save U.S. solar cell and module manufacturing from international market pressures. At this point, there are only 14 solar cell/module manufacturers in the U.S.  A majority of solar cell and modules are now produced in Asia, with China as the leading (and most cost competitive) producer worldwide. The impact of American tariffs was insignificant partially because Chinese manufacturers could simply move their production to other Asian countries to avoid the tariffs. The tariffs on Taiwanese cells attempted to close this loophole, but the manufacturers still had many other options (such as Vietnam).

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the average solar module price in China was 0.43 cents per watt in 2016, while it was 0.61 cents per watt in California, which was one of the highest averages among major markets. Therefore, despite its other flaws, the new tariff may simply be too low to drive existing U.S. manufacturers to greatly expand their capacity and thus to protect jobs. Second, although some foreign manufacturers have responded positively, the four-year duration of the tariff may limit its ability to attract significant investments of foreign manufacturers to build plants in the U.S.

In recent years, U.S. solar installation has grown rapidly, driven by the dramatically falling cost of solar products. In 2016, solar installation reached approximately 17 times of the installation in 2010. The new tariff would slow this rise. According to GTM Research, the tariff would result in a net reduction of 11 percent in U.S. solar installations from 2018 to 2022—reducing installations from an estimated 68.9 gigawatts to 61.3 gigawatts over the next five years.

This slower growth of low-carbon energy in one of the largest emitter countries is a critical concern, as it both reduces job growth and creates obstacles to the rapid pace of clean energy deployment needed to address climate and clean air challenges. Although Trump argues that this is designed to protect solar manufacturing jobs, the tariff is likely to help spur jobs in competing industries, like coal, whose economic viability has been threatened by the advent of rapidly declining costs for natural gas and solar energy.

A solar tariff is about not only domestic solar manufacturing, but also the entire solar industry, a low-carbon economy, and the global solar market. From this perspective, building a robust, competitive, and innovative business environment for the solar industry can pay more dividends than protecting a small part of the industry.

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