Commerce extends review duration for Auxin Solar petition despite market lobbying

• The US Department of Commerce has actually offered itself more time to examine an anti-circumvention petition from Auxin Solar despite cautions from greater than 200 business that recommended tariffs could create "tragic and also unneeded injury" to the country's PV industry.

Commerce has extended the review period for the petition from California-based module producer Auxin, which has actually asked for investigations into whether crystalline silicon PV cells and modules constructed in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand as well as Vietnam are circumventing US anti-dumping and also countervailing obligation (AD/CVD) orders on cells as well as modules from China.

The decision comes after greater than 200 solar business advised Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to decline the petition, which would impose responsibilities that they state would create the US to shed almost 14GW of solar deployment and also make it "almost difficult" to satisfy Head of state Biden's climate goals.

" The petitioner looks for to video game the system by imposing cost-prohibitive obligations on its rivals, including its fellow residential module producers that depend upon imported cells from Southeast Asia," the companies said in a letter sent to Raimondo previously this week.

The responsibilities, ranging from 50% to 250%, would delay projects as well as cause the loss of 45,000 American jobs, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which said the petition "is based on the incorrect case that manufacturing in the 4 countries is a 'small or trivial' procedure. The fact is that considerable work is performed in those countries."

Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand as well as Vietnam are the resource of greater than 80% of solar imports into the United States.

Commerce's transfer to prolong the review period comes simply four months after it declined another request for investigations into alleged AD/CVD circumvention in Southeast Asia, mentioning the anonymity of the group behind the petition.

Nevertheless, that petition-- filed in August 2021-- slowed down solar deployment in the United States as some international PV devices providers withheld deliveries till service certainty was developed, the business said in their letter to Raimondo. "Lots of solar projects were delayed, consisting of projects incomplete, and also several jobs were shed," they said.

George Hershman, chief executive officer of solar designer and also O&M provider SOLV Power, stated Commerce's decision to prolong the review period for the petition "will certainly come with a high price for the solar market", including: "Each day the risk of tariffs impends, tens of thousands of jobs and numerous projects hang in the balance."

In its filing, Auxin alleges that cell as well as module assemblers in Southeast Asia use affiliated Chinese input distributors as well as a totally incorporated Chinese supply chain to circumvent the AD/CVD orders. In a press release published when the petition was revealed, Auxin chief executive officer Mamun Rashid said the procedures defined in its declaring represent "textbook circumvention".

Study released today by SEIA and expert company Timber Mackenzie exposed that while solar deployment in the US got to a record high in 2021, utility-scale enhancements are readied to drop this year as a result of supply chain uncertainty as well as unpredictable asset rates. Their US Solar Market Insight report warned of the considerable boost in module prices if added tariffs are at some point introduced.