I have business consulting clients in the solar industry. There seems to be some confusion on solar tariffs. Let me explain why this hurts American jobs and revenue.
The tariff is on imports. 99% of the solar panels sold in the US are made from components from the Pacifc Rim, 80% of finished panels. The US has a small market share here and less abroad. This makes American priced panels even less competitive because the components used in US produced panels now become more expensive. The only serious US Solar players are the German subsidiary of Solar World and First Solar. The process is highly automated which means that US jobs are mostly on the installation side. If there were more US manufacturing, they would still need to use outsourced components since they hold many of the patents. Even Tesla uses pacific rim panels and components. Not only are they the best, and most energy efficient they are also the most cost effective. American installers of solar panels wis see a cost spike of 30%, and due to the low margins it will increase their price to consumers. A standard installation is around $30K which means it would be bumped to $39K with no additional value. The value is in the offset of the electric bill and this is negatively affected by a higher system cost. So higher price, reduced offset. This will reduce the number of sales which correlates to staff cuts and affects the overall growth of solar resulting in fewer hires in the future. Manufacturing jobs related to hiring workers in a highly automated process like solar panel production would be small. There would be no international market for higher priced American panels even if we had the manufacturing. This is not about “America First”, it’s all about protecting the fossil fuel industry.