Commenting on the U.S. solar products tariff ruling, ReneSola said the new tariff rate was widely anticipated.
Doran Hole, the company’s CEO of North America and group vice president of Strategy, however, said the higher prices for the modules are not a welcome step.
“We believe the U.S. project development industry has already adjusted to the tariffs, and the impact on growth should be benign,” Hole added.
Yesterday, the U.S. Trade Representative announced that U.S. President Trump approved the recommendation to impose safeguard tariffs on imported solar cells and modules. The relief will include a tariff of 30 percent in the first year, 25 percent in the second year, 20 percent in the third year, and 15 percent in the fourth year. However, the first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells will be exempt from the safeguard tariff in each of those four years.
ReneSola anticipates that the only impact of the tariffs will be to the purchase price of modules used in only one of its markets, the U.S. The ongoing technical advancement in the cell and module manufacturing industry will drive continued price reductions in the years ahead, which will be beneficial to its business model.
Hole continued, “We do not expect the temporarily higher prices of some modules to diminish the rapid growth of new development opportunities in the U.S. Community solar and rooftop distributed generation are two examples of the burgeoning activity we are pursuing. As module prices continue to decline over time, we expect to see accelerating activity in those segments. We remain very optimistic about the growth prospects for the solar energy industry, both in the U.S. and around the world.”