Solar Industry Asks Commerce to Reject Anticircumvention Case
Solar developers, installers, manufacturers, and solar array accessory providers are asking Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to reject claims that solar panels made in Southeast Asia are really of Chinese origin, and therefore, are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar panel exports.
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The Commerce Department is required to make its preliminary determination in the case, brought by Auxin Solar, by Dec. 1; the letter, sent by more than 240 companies and trade groups, was sent Nov. 16. Even if the Commerce Department finds there was circumvention, importers will be spared cash deposits until June 6, 2024 (see 2206060036 and 2209160065).
"President Biden took a crucial near-term step over the summer to free up a gridlocked solar supply chain, but companies won’t be able to capitalize on the administration’s landmark climate policy if this baseless case isn’t thrown out,” Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a press release announcing the letter.
"The ample evidence in these proceedings verifies that solar cell and module manufacturing involves technologically sophisticated operations which greatly exceed the anticircumvention statute’s 'minor or insignificant processing' limitation," the letter said. "It would be an improper expansion of U.S. anti-circumvention law for the Department to conclude otherwise."