The solar industry is bracing for job losses after Trump’s tariffs

The solar industry is bracing for a drop in new solar installations in the wake of the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported solar panels announced in January.

In a solar industry jobs census released Wednesday, 61 percent of solar project developers who were polled said they are anticipating installations to drop by more than 25 percent this year, with a majority also expecting higher business costs and more difficulty securing financing for solar energy.

This follows a decline in employment in the US solar industry last year, with 250,271 workers across manufacturing, installation, financing, and services. This was a 3.8 percent drop from 2016, a year of record growth spurred by the threat of losing a key tax credit.

It’s yet another signal that it’s not just policies but the uncertainties around them that can change the fortunes of the solar energy sector.

“We are probably looking into a couple of rocky years ahead,” said Ed Gilliland, senior director for the Solar Foundation and author of the jobs report.

The US Trade Representative’s January ruling was based on recommendations from the US International Trade Commission and adds a 30 percent tariff on solar cells and modules, increasing the cost of installing solar panels for American homeowners and utilities. It kicks in after the first 2.5 gigawatts’ worth of imported capacity and is slated to decline over the next four years.

The initial announcement also included tariffs of up to 50 percent for imported washing machines.

US Trade Representative

The ITC made its recommendations in October after solar manufacturers lobbied the commission on the case that China had been subsidizing its solar manufacturers unfairly since 2005, allowing it to undercut US manufacturers. This was a big part of why Solyndra, a solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration, went bankrupt. In 2012, the federal government added anti-dumping duties to Chinese solar panels, but manufacturers exploited a loophole that allowed them to bypass the duties by moving the final assembly to Taiwan.

When US solar manufacturers tried to get another set of tariffs installed in 2013, Chinese companies moved production to Germany, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The side effect of this tariff whack-a-mole was that solar panel prices around the world cratered, leading to a blossoming of solar power. Solar is now the fastest-growing source of new energy, with 86 gigawatts expected to be installed worldwide this year.

GTM Research

However, the trade case exposed a rift in the US solar community between manufacturers and installers. Beleaguered US manufacturers like Solar World will benefit somewhat from the tariffs, but installers, which want the lowest-cost hardware, will suffer.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents solar installers like Elon Musk’s SolarCity, was aghast at the ruling and said at the time that it would harm the industry and cost thousands of jobs.

Last year was the first decrease in solar sector employment since 2010, according to the solar jobs census. But there are still twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs in the US.

About 38,000 people work in solar panel manufacturing, and the bulk of the remainder are in installation. Despite the slight slowdown, “solar installer” is poised to become the fastest-growing job in the United States over the next 10 years.

And even if prices rise, it’s worth keeping in mind that the panels themselves are less than one-third of the final cost of a solar installation. As hardware costs go down, the relative costs of labor, permitting, and taxes go up. The 30 percent tariff would add 10 to 15 cents per watt to the final installed price of solar, but the “soft costs” are still coming down.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

However, the solar industry competes on margins of pennies per kilowatt-hour, which is why installers are so worried about rising prices tamping down demand, and thereby jobs, in the solar energy sector in the coming years even as they make progress in other aspects.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said the International Trade Commission made its recommendations on tariffs in December. In fact, the recommendations were sent to the White House in October.