The price of solar panels fell to record lows this week, just as Donald Trump slapped a 30% tariff on panels imported into the US.
The spot price of solar PV (more or less the wholesale cost for multi-megawatt orders), has fallen consistenty for the past two months, down to $0.353 per watt for monosilicon 270W panels.
That's 5% down on December, following a 5% drop in November.
Solar panels are nearly 30% cheaper than they were this time last year.
That's nothing to do with Trump, of course, and everything to do with what's called Swanson's law, which says that the price of solar PV modules drops 20% for every doubling of the amount shipped by manufacturers.
Indeed, global installations rose 31% in 2017, following rises of 32% the year before, and 28% in 2014.
The global rollout of solar PV continues; there's little Trump can do about it.
So what do you think about the tariff? I want to believe that there is also some plan to incentivize US domestic production of panels, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Do you think the tariff could have any benefit on the industry?
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@cstrimel - I think Elon Musk must be very pleased! And what the hell, btw, was Musk doing on Trump's business advisory panel a few months back? Musk is fairly close to Trump, so this is good for SolarCity.
In some ways these kind of financial barriers can be a good thing - the FIT cuts of 2 years ago cut a lot of fat from the business models of solar installers, for example, so the price gets driven down quicker.
In terms of impace, a 30% additional to panel price means a 10-15% increase in installed price, which is not hugely significant, especially given the tax credits that Americans get for solar. That might be Trump's next move.
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In fairness it seems Mr Musk did at least try to temper Trump's stupidity, for example:
https://www.inverse.com/article/34233-elon-musk-offers-color-on-why-he-quit-trump-s-councils
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It's a bit rubbish isn't it but @sikuc100 pointed out over on the Slack group, the EU has an anti-dumping tariff of 64.9% (!) which I did not know about. Not that it excuses Trump's insane policy - both should be removed: http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/why-eu-tariffs-on-chinese-solar-panels-need-to-end/
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@bernard.mcc - yes, the EU has a tariff - it's called MIP or minimum import price- but it's largely become obselete as manufacturers just shifted their operations to countries that weren't covered by MIP. A lot of it went from China to other Asian nations.
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Seems like the stable genius in chief didn't quite think it through:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/trumps-solar-tariff-backfires-hits-red-states-u-s-taxpayers-harder-china-14090/
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where do you have the graphs from? Or you created them yourself?
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