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Sparks

Biden Takes a Side in the Solar Industry’s Family Feud

The administration is expanding tariffs to include a type of solar modules popular in utility-scale installations.

Solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Biden administration continued its campaign to support domestic green energy manufacturing via trade policy on Thursday, this time by expanding existing solar panel tariffs to include the popular two-sided modules used in many utility-scale solar installations.

With this move, the Biden administration is decisively intervening in the solar industry’s raging feud on the side of the adolescent-but-quickly-maturing (thanks, in part, to generous government support) domestic solar manufacturing industry. On the other side is the more established solar development, installation, and financing industry, which tends to support the widespread availability of cheaper solar components, even if they come from China or Chinese-owned companies in Southeast Asia.

These particular solar modules, known as bifacial modules, are estimated to account for over 90% of U.S. module imports. That amounted to some $4.3 billion of incoming orders in the first six months of last year, according to a report by the International Trade Commission, an almost three-fold increase from the first six months of the year prior.

Tariffs on solar modules were first imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 and later extended in 2022, with the levy rate falling to around 14% from the initial 30%.

Domestic and global solar supply chains are under threat from “unfair and non-market practices,” as well as “Chinese solar panel overcapacity,” National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said on a call with reporters — hence the expanded tariffs.

The solar manufacturing industry and elected representatives in states that have seen large solar manufacturing investments have been pushing to end the exclusion. Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, for instance, wrote a letter to President Biden in March calling for the bifacial exemption to be removed, arguing that “the elimination of the exemption for bifacial panels would strengthen the United States’ and Georgia’s economy, protect U.S. national security, and serve the nation’s long-term economic and energy security interests.”

The Korean solar company Qcells is planning to invest more than $2 billion in solar manufacturing in Georgia. The American solar manufacturer First Solar has long campaigned for bifacial modules to be included in the tariffs.

White House climate advisor John Podesta cited the International Trade Commission report during the briefing with reporters to demonstrate that an increase in bifacial imports had occurred while imports of other types of modules had fallen. “The findings … made clear that the bifacial exemption was likely being abused, and that that tariff exemption was no longer appropriate,” Podesta said.

The White House is not completely deaf to the preferences of the other side of the solar industry, however.

Developers who have contracts to buy bifacial panels that will be shipped within 90 days will still be able to import them without duties, Podesta said, “to avoid undue disruptions to the industry.”

The tariffs also allow a quota of solar cells, which are later assembled into modules, to be imported without charges. Zaidi said that “raising … the tariff rate quota to facilitate the availability of solar cells for manufacturers here in the United States will be necessary to make sure we're sprinting into the acceleration that's necessary to grow the U.S. manufacturing capacity.”

The solar lobby had been asking for at least an increase in the tariff rate quota. While they weren’t able to win the war over tariffs, they’re still getting something.

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Sparks

The Country’s Largest Power Markets Are Getting More Gas

Three companies are joining forces to add at least a gigawatt of new generation by 2029. The question is whether they can actually do it.

Natural gas pipelines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Two of the biggest electricity markets in the country — the 13-state PJM Interconnection, which spans the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, and ERCOT, which covers nearly all of Texas — want more natural gas. Both are projecting immense increases in electricity demand thanks to data centers and electrification. And both have had bouts of market weirdness and dysfunction, with ERCOT experiencing spiky prices and even blackouts during extreme weather and PJM making enormous payouts largely to gas and coal operators to lock in their “capacity,” i.e. their ability to provide power when most needed.

Now a trio of companies, including the independent power producer NRG, the turbine manufacturer GE Vernova, and a subsidiary of the construction firm Kiewit Corporation, are teaming up with a plan to bring gas-powered plants to PJM and ERCOT, the companies announced today.

The three companies said that the new joint venture “will work to advance four projects totaling over 5 gigawatts” of natural gas combined cycle plants to the two power markets, with over a gigawatt coming by 2029. The companies said that they could eventually build 10 to 15 gigawatts “and expand to other areas across the U.S.”

So far, PJM and Texas’ call for new gas has been more widely heard than answered. The power producer Calpine said last year that it would look into developing more gas in PJM, but actual investment announcements have been scarce, although at least one gas plant scheduled to close has said it would stay open.

So far, across the country, planned new additions to the grid are still overwhelmingly solar and battery storage, according to the Energy Information Administration, whose data shows some 63 gigawatts of planned capacity scheduled to be added this year, with more than half being solar and over 80% being storage.

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Sparks

An Emergency Trump-Coded Appeal to Save the Hydrogen Tax Credit

Featuring China, fossil fuels, and data centers.

The Capitol.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

As Republicans in Congress go hunting for ways to slash spending to carry out President Trump’s agenda, more than 100 energy businesses, trade groups, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to key House and Senate leaders on Tuesday requesting that one particular line item be spared: the hydrogen tax credit.

The tax credit “will serve as a catalyst to propel the United States to global energy dominance,” the letter argues, “while advancing American competitiveness in energy technologies that our adversaries are actively pursuing.” The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association organized the letter, which features signatures from the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, and numerous hydrogen, industrial gas, and chemical companies, among many others. Three out of the seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — the Mid-Atlantic, Heartland, and Pacific Northwest hubs — are also listed.

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Why Your Car Insurance Bill Is Making Renewables More Expensive

Core inflation is up, meaning that interest rates are unlikely to go down anytime soon.

Wind turbines being built.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Fed on Wednesday issued a report showing substantial increases in the price of eggs, used cars, and auto insurance — data that could spell bad news for the renewables economy.

Though some of those factors had already been widely reported on, the overall rise in prices exceeded analysts’ expectations. With overall inflation still elevated — reaching an annual rate of 3%, while “core” inflation, stripping out food and energy, rose to 3.3%, after an unexpectedly sharp 0.4% jump in January alone — any prospect of substantial interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve has dwindled even further.

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