Recent Ruling on Solar Shakes Up The Industry

David Trammel's picture

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/22/sol...

In a move that will certainly lead to higher expenses if you want to add a solar photo electric system to your home, this came in. The US International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of a suit brought by domestic solar panel manufacturers challenging the dumping of foriegn panels on the US market.

Look for tarriffs and price increase from the Trump administration.

The article is worth reading.

Its a easily understood premise that you can't compete when you pay your domestic workers a living wage, and foreign companies instead pay a fraction of that to their third world (or Chinese) workers.

The people opposed in my reading seem to be the "installation industry" who see any increase in the cost of the underlying equipment, as something which will slow the growth of people installing systems. They don't care if they are installing domestic or foreign panels.

Personally, I would rather see a return to domestic manufacturing of many things, including solar panels, even if it meant we here in the US paid more for them. And yet as someone with a limited means and smaller budget, cheap panels hold their appeal.

I am though reminded of Chinese milk laced with harmful chemicals being sold in their country, so that someone can make a buck skimming profit off of manufacturing supplies.

I wonder if those companies opposed to this will give me a discount a few years from now, when my cheap foreign solar panels have degraded so badly they don't work?

Blueberry's picture

I have USA made panels that are over 20 years old cost was around $6.00 per watt. My two systems have been real work horses have had to replaces batteries more than once ( 7-9 years life). Set up a very small system using panels made in the Far East never again total junk after 5 years.

Blueberry's picture

Just had to set up a small system to run a fence charger. So went with a 100 watt panel made in Chine. Panel is way above what I purchased a number of years ago. The cost was under one hundred dollars. My oldest panels are over 23 years old so will need to look at replacement in the next few years.