By Alexa St. John
Mike Summers was impatient to install Solar at home in Ohio for years, and after finally replacing his aging roof this year, his solar entrepreneur has taken action. Its system – including 19 panels and a battery battery – has mounted this week, and Summers considers itself lucky.
“I am happy to have done it when I did it,” said Summers, a former mayor of his city in Lakewood just west of Cleveland. He will receive about $ 10,000 in tax credits on his $ 39,000 investment, but almost as important is that all the equipment was easily available.
Other solar buyers full of hope may have a lot more harm in the coming months. President Donald Trump’s growing trade war with China threatens to tighten a massive source of panels and solar parts, the experts saying that the cost of projects will certainly increase as China retaliates.
China has represented at least 80% of the components of solar panels as recently as in 2022, according to a report by the International Energy Agency, in particular polysilicon, glass and solar cells. Solar also demands the increase in critical mineral supplies, of which China is a key player around the world and electronics.
In the United States, private industry has paid $ 18.2 billion in the development of a national supply chain in recent years, according to Atlas public policy, which includes everything, ingots and platelets that make up the panels with electrical and structural components to the assembly of the panels themselves. Most of this came from the law on the reduction of inflation adopted during the administration of former President Joe Biden, with massive funding for clean energy investment.
But that will not be close to the replacement of what China produces.
“Really, everyone is losing when you think about it, because systems cost customers more and it also makes it more difficult, in some ways, for us to do business,” said Brian Dipaolo, Deputy Sales Director at Solar Installing Cleveland Yellowlite, who does the Summers project. Dipaolo said some customers hold the plans until there is more clarity. The company has always been full of solar panels, made in North America a month ago to stay competitive in the coming months.
“We see both international and national equipment manufacturers increasing their costs to prepare for prices,” said Dipaolo. “You think national manufacturers would maintain their prices down because they are not affected by prices, but they see this additional request for their equipment.”
It is supply and demand, said Martin Pochtaruk, CEO of Heliene, who focuses on large -scale solar projects. He described the price of a necessary glass component from China in February due to a price hike. Suppliers from other countries have equaled the higher price, which means higher costs regardless of the source.
Alexis Abramson, dean of the Climate School of Columbia University, said that there was no doubt that residential solar energy was going to be more expensive. This will reduce solar adoption, and small medium-sized installers take place, she said.
It is simply “extremely difficult to offer a current and future certainty of customers” when commercial policy changes as much, said James Hasselbeck, director of exploitation of the New England, Revision Energy.
Solar has become much more affordable in recent years when technology increases, improves and becomes cheaper to install. Systems can still cost thousands of dollars on average, but the average cost of a residential system is down by more than 70% compared to 2010, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. American consumers have also had a chance to generate credits that still reduce the cost, although the future of these is uncertain under the Trump administration.
The costs of the commercial project and on the scale of public services have also dropped dramatically.
This has fueled rapid growth in the United States over the past two decades. In 2024, the commercial segment increased by 8% and public services increased by 33%, according to an annual report by the association and the Wood Mackenzie Council. The residential segment dropped 32% last year, but experts attribute this to high interest rates and the uncertainty of the elections, and said they expected continuous growth before the prices touched.
Solar energy is an important source of clean energy because it does not emit harmful greenhouse gases that coal, natural gas and oil are. They are massive contributors to warming the earth.
Trump imposed prices during his first term on solar cells and modules imported in 2018 in the hope of reducing dependence on China.
But China has subsidized its own interior overproduction and some American manufacturers have accused it of mainly moving operations to four southeast Asian countries which had a temporary exemption from prices.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive officer of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said that the United States “quickly takes control of the supply chain from China to build the strongest solar manufacturing base in the world”. The group indicated that in 2024, the manufacturing capacity of modules, which is widely concentrated in the South, increased by 190% and said that the manufacture of cells “has been raised for the first time in five years” with the company to restart Suniva.
But Hopper also said that sudden changes in policy risks cool the investment and slowdown in job creation, especially for manufacturers. The group said in the first Trump administration that the prices issued were then harmful to industry.
In the end, Abramson said that she “would encourage anyone who really thought of putting solar energy on his roof to really try to lock it sooner than late.”
Find out more about the AD climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment.
Alexa St. John is a journalist by Associated Press Climate. Follow it on x: @alexa_stjohn. Join her at ast.john@ap.org.
The climate and environmental coverage of the Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP standards to work with philanthropies, a list of supporters and coverage areas financed at AP.ORG.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
