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Policy Watch

Tariffs Hit Solar Cells

And more of the week’s biggest news in clean energy policy.

Solar Panels
Unsplash/Heatmap

1. Seasons change, tariffs stay the same – The Biden administration is putting a duty on solar cells from four South Asian countries believed to be pass-throughs for Chinese imports: Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

  • The tariffs range wildly from less than 1% to almost 300%. Impacted companies include Jintek, Hanwha Q Cells (a.k.a. Qcells), JinkoSolar, and Trina Solar.
  • What this’ll mean: developers wrestling with pricier imported cells from some of the most popular sources.
  • These tariffs resulted from an anti-dumping case filed by an alliance of U.S. solar manufacturers including First Solar, Convalt Energy, REC Silicon, and, ironically, also Qcells.

2. New money for new nuclear – The Energy Department yesterday finalized over $2.8 billion in loans and grants to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.

  • The plant – to be operated by Holtec – shut down in 2022 which means, as reports indicate, it shouldn’t take long to recommission and could be re-operational by next year.
  • Nuclear Energy Institute CEO Maria Korsnick told me earlier this year over pasta that she was vying for more direct investments to individual projects, partially to make it harder to repeal Inflation Reduction Act programs.

3. California is so silly sometimes – A judge has temporarily halted a California rule that would’ve stopped some solar developers in the state from building battery storage.

  • California’s contractor licensing board had set forth regulation effective Oct. 1 stopping solar equipment workers from installing or maintaining batteries beyond 80 kWH (which… is obviously not a lot of power).
  • The regulation will now be suspended until a legal challenge from solar and battery storage companies can be resolved.

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Spotlight

How a Fight over Cables Could Kill Offshore Wind in New Jersey

Let's dive deep into the campaign against the so-called “high-risk” cables.

Cable and offshore.
Wiki Commons / Joel Arbaje / Heatmap

One of the biggest threats to American offshore wind is a handful of homeowners on the south Jersey shoreline spouting unproven theories about magnetic fields.

Within a year of forming, the activist group “Stop The High-Risk Cables” has galvanized local politicians against the transmission infrastructure being planned for wind turbines off the coast of New Jersey known as the Larrabee Pre-built Infrastructure. The transmission route, which will run a few miles from the beaches of Sea Girt, New Jersey, to a substation nearby, is expected to be a crucial landing zone for power from major offshore wind projects in south Jersey waters, including Atlantic Shores, a joint venture between EDF Renewables and Shell that received final permits from federal regulators last week.

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Hotspots

Vineyard Wind’s New Fight

And more of the week’s biggest conflicts in renewable energy.

Map.
Heatmap illustration.

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – A new group – Keep Nantucket Wild – is mobilizing opposition to the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, seeking to capitalize on the recent blade breakage to sever the town of Nantucket’s good neighbor agreement with project developer Avangrid.

  • Keep Nantucket Wild was started weeks ago by raw bar restaurateur Jesse Sandole and yoga studio owner Evie O’Connor. The group already has amassed more than 1,000 signatures on a petition to the town select board to pull out of the good neighbor agreement.
  • Town officials have previously said they will renegotiate the pact, which included a $16 million company payment into a community fund and promises to reduce nighttime visual impacts.

2. East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana – One lowkey local election this fall may decide the future of Louisiana’s renewables: the swing seat on the state’s Public Service Commission, which is being vacated this year by a retiring moderate Republican.

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Policy Watch

Power Line Planning

And more of the week’s top policy news.

Power Line Planning
Olivie Strauss / Severin Demchuk / Heatmap

Transmissions on transmission – The Energy Department last week released a must-read national planning study for transmission to connect renewables to the grid through 2040.

  • The takeaway? We could reduce billions of tonnes of CO2 emissions with interregional transmission and constraining development would require new nuclear and hydrogen energy to meet emission reduction targets, instead of solar, wind, and batteries.
  • The lengthy report didn’t go into the permitting challenges at all though and the mapping does read aspirational if you know the context.
  • Regardless, we hope to see you on DOE’s webinar on the study next Wednesday.

SCOTUS shrugs for once – The Supreme Court declined to stay challenges to the EPA’s methane and mercury air pollution regulations, meaning at least two Biden regulatory tailwinds for renewables developers remains in play.

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