US Solar Factories Are In for ‘Rude Awakening,’ Report Warns
- US plants in for ‘rude awakening,’ BloombergNEF warns
- Many factory projects likely to be canceled as prices fall
Solar panel cells move along a conveyor at a manufacturing facility in Georgia.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Many planned US solar factories probably won’t be built as cheap imports from Chinese companies push global cell and panel prices so low that even federal subsidies can’t sustain domestic plants, a report warns.
President Joe Biden has made bringing clean energy manufacturing back to the US a top priority, both to create jobs and fight climate change. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act contained a subsidy of 7 cents per watt for domestic solar panel factories that use imported cells, triggering a wave of US plant announcements.