The US Senate has passed a vote to repeal Joe Biden’s two-year waiver on solar import tariffs, a decision which the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has previously said could result in US$1 billion in retroactive tariffs for the industry and 4GW of project cancellations.
Italian utility Enel’s US subsidiary Enel North America has said that Oklahoma is the favourable location for its planned 3GW US cell and module manufacturing facility.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced US$52 million in financing for research and development (R&D) into domestic solar manufacturing and recycling, including a focus on new technologies.
The US market is expected to see a strong uptick in overall module supply, both domestic and overseas, in 2023. Alongside this will be a range of different module technologies, making the US market the most differentiated from a technology standpoint this year.
Indian solar manufacturer Rayzon Solar has announced plans to set up a 500MW solar module factory in the US and expand its existing Indian production capacity by a further 1GW.
PV module prices are set to fall considerably in the next five years, though US market prices will remain higher than the rest of the world as its import policies and ongoing competition with China add a market premium.
2GW worth of solar PV modules were detained at the US border throughout 2022 as a result of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), representing 1,423 individual shipments.
Hanwha Advanced Materials Georgia (HAGA) – part of Hanwha Solutions – will increase its investment in the US state of Georgia to support the integrated supply chain plans of its PV manufacturing subsidiary QCells.
TÜV Rheinland held a ‘Global PV Buyers’ Workshop’, inviting some 20 representatives from the industry’s downstream players to take part. Brookfield Renewable, BayWa, Engie, TotalEnergies and Lightsource BP and others, and companies mainly engaged in development and operations such as ACWA Power, Bouygues and ECADI shared their thinking from different perspectives on module quality and procurement strategies.
