The U.S. Department of Commerce's decision to impose the punitive tariffs as high as 250% on solar panels imported from China was greeted with cheers by the U.S. solar panel manufacturers.
The Chinese solar panel manufacturing companies have been dumping solar panels at prices below production costs so this move should give huge boost U.S. solar manufacturing sector.
While U.S. solar manufacturers are happy with this decision this isn't the case with domestic installation firms because many of them rely on cheaper solar panels imported from China, and say that these punitive tariffs will hit their businesses hard, and heavily decrease their profits.
What they fear is that this decision will likely increase their costs which will result in weaker demand, and could even lead to many people losing their jobs.
The cheap solar panels from China are one of the main reasons why the prices of solar modules have been steadily going down and the prospect of higher costs is not exactly the best possible news for U.S. solar industry.
Many energy analysts believe that these tariffs will at least temporarily slow homeowners' and businesses' demand for solar panels, and that there could be a short-term stagnation within the U.S. solar energy industry as the consequence of it.
Were these tariffs really needed to U.S. solar panel manufacturing sector still remains to be seen. The U.S. solar panel manufacturers will no doubt benefit from this decision because if Chinese manufacturers raise their prices U.S. solar manufacturers will likely do the same to ensure bigger profits. The U.S. consumers will pay higher prices and this will add extra profit to U.S. solar panel manufacturers and could even lead to more jobs within the manufacturing sector.
