Double-Sided Solar Panels Get Exemption From Trump's Trade Tariffs 6park.com



John Parnell
Contributor

EnergyI cover the international renewable energy sector, especially solar.




Bifacial solar modules, which generate power from the front and the back, have been exempted from a 25% trade tariff that had all but stopped imports from China.
This offers a fresh supply of lower cost solar panels to U.S. developers who have seen the construction of new projects level out after a period of significant growth. In 2018, deployment actually fell 2% compared to the previous year.
While the lower prices will be a welcome boost, the decision, confirmed in the Federal Register today, is not entirely the open goal that it may seem. 6park.com
 6park.com
Bifacial modules at the La Silla Astronomical Observatory in Chile.
 GETTY 6park.com
 6park.com

In essence, bifacial solar cells use the exact same technology as dozens of GWs worth of existing solar farms, with a few tweaks to enable light to reflect from the ground and generate electricity via the back of the cell. But their lack of volume out in the field makes them appear to be an unknown quantity.
Normal, monofacial solar panels are really predictable. If you know what the weather is going to do and you know how the solar farm is structured, you pretty much know how much electricity, and so revenue, you will generate. That makes financing such a piece of infrastructure really easy. Throw in the unpredictability of the power from the rear side and things become harder to model. Conservative investors have been reluctant to take a punt on it but that is changing. 6park.com
Now that prices for panels have continued to fall, the small price premium for bifacial modules has been eroded. A number of bifacial solar plants have been financed based only on the power from the front. After a few years of operation, the real world data for that very site can be used to effectively remortgage the project with the addition of the power from the back. More revenue means lower interest rates and a more profitable project.
Solar’s Own Trade War
The Section 201 measures are applied to more or less every country in the world with a sizeable solar manufacturing base. They currently sit at 25% and will reduce to 20% in February. When added to existing duties applied to Chinese modules they all but ended exports directly from mainland China to the U.S.
In a sublime feat of supply chain contortion, Chinese companies had avoided the older China-only duties by shifting production countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The Section 201 tariffs include all of these nations. Likewise, solar developers in the U.S. worked extremely hard to rearrange project timelines and find new sources of supply to maximize their ability to complete projects.
A number of firms announced U.S. based factories to assemble solar cells into finished panels. While painted as a jobs win for the policy, this process is highly automated and low-skilled. 6park.com