The business additionally noticed fourth quarter installations leap 32 p.c year-over-year, even with an enormous backlog of tasks awaiting interco
The business additionally noticed fourth quarter installations leap 32 p.c year-over-year, even with an enormous backlog of tasks awaiting interconnection, and as utility-scale tasks rushed to satisfy an anticipated decline within the Funding Tax Credit score charge, the report mentioned.
The 2-year extension of the ITC, which was signed into legislation within the closing days of 2020, has elevated the five-year outlook for photo voltaic deployment by 17 p.c, based on the report.
The photo voltaic business has grown rapidly over the previous a number of years, even increasing whereas Trump administration enacted commerce tariffs and lease charge hikes and criticized the know-how as costly.
President Joe Biden, in the meantime, entered the White Home with plans to place the nation on a path towards eliminating greenhouse gases from the facility grid by 2035 and for the general financial system by 2050. Shortly after his inauguration, Biden signed an govt order that referred to as for growing renewable vitality manufacturing on public lands and waters.
SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper informed POLITICO that the commerce group is hopeful the upcoming infrastructure package deal will give attention to tax credit for the business, in addition to assist construct out transmission and the electrification of the transportation system.
“I believe there’s plenty of issues Congress may do there,” she mentioned. “Clearly tax credit are an necessary instrument, a carbon tax is a vital instrument, [and] a clear vitality customary is a vital instrument. We’re open to plenty of alternative ways to get there, however offering for long-term certainty for corporations in order that they will deploy capital and construct infrastructure is the objective.”
SEIA has had conversations with the Biden administration on infrastructure and tax credit, Hopper mentioned, in addition to on commerce and coverage initiatives to assist home manufacturing within the U.S. The commerce conversations have included each the White Home and the USA Commerce Consultant.
Earlier this month, the Justice Division beneath Biden backed the Trump administration’s transfer to revoke a tariff loophole created for double-sided photo voltaic panels. In a submitting within the U.S. Courtroom of Worldwide Commerce, the DOJ mentioned the court docket ought to dismiss a photo voltaic business grievance led by SEIA that challenged the import tariff transfer and argued that former President Donald Trump was “lawfully and totally inside his authority” when he closed the loophole. SEIA declined remark on the time.
However Hopper mentioned she didn’t see the Biden DOJ submitting as a sign of wavering help by the administration, significantly as a few of Biden’s political appointees weren’t but in place. “My evaluation is that the Division of Justice in making that submitting was simply persevering with to enact the authorized technique it had [already] enacted,” including that she didn’t see it as a “dying knell to us.”
As an alternative, Hopper mentioned the commerce group’s most fast, near-term precedence is restoring “some certainty” across the Part 201 tariffs, which Trump raised in October to 18 p.c from the 15 p.c it will have been. Hopper mentioned the group can be speaking to the administration concerning the bifacial tariffs that had been a part of that very same order however mentioned it has developed its conversations to give attention to a “wholesome photo voltaic provide chain,” somewhat than altering the proportion of the tariff.
“We do not simply go in and say, ‘Change the tariffs. Eliminate the tariffs. That is all we care about.’ We are saying, ‘OK, let’s speak about how now we have a sustainable, wholesome photo voltaic provide chain,'” Hopper mentioned.
The Biden administration, Hopper added, has been “receptive to the dialog.”
“I believe they’re having a look on the entire panoply of tariffs that our former president imposed, so the 201 tariffs which are solar-specific clearly being certainly one of them, however [also] the Part 232 metal tariffs and the Part 301 tariffs from China,” she mentioned. “So, my understanding is that there is a holistic analysis of all of those tariffs occurring.”
Congressional staffers additionally signaled final week that lawmakers could also be contemplating making wind and photo voltaic tax credit refundable, permitting corporations to profit instantly, a minimum of for a brief interval, since final yr’s financial downturn worn out out the tax fairness market the place photo voltaic corporations sometimes offered their credit. That is one other “pressing” hurdle Hopper mentioned the commerce group is keen to beat.
“Between the chopping of the company tax charge and the financial recession, there’s clearly much less urge for food for tax credit,” she mentioned. “Actually, now we have seen a constricting of that market, and so it’s tougher for tasks to get financed, as a result of there’s simply not as many establishments on the market with an urge for food to try this. So now we have been lobbying Congress since just about when this turned obvious final yr to have these monies be instantly paid to the developer, as an alternative of being a tax credit score to an investor.”
She additionally listed interconnection queues for photo voltaic tasks as one other space of pressure, as photo voltaic tasks are “sitting in line endlessly,” whereas utilities consider what it’s going to price to interconnect.
Residential deployment was up 11 p.c from 2019 to a document 3.1 GW, based on Tuesday’s report. However the tempo of enlargement was nonetheless decrease than the 18 p.c annual progress in 2019, as residential installations had been affected by the pandemic within the first half of 2020.
A complete of 5 GW of recent utility solar energy buy agreements had been introduced in This autumn 2020, growing the quantity of challenge bulletins final yr to 30.6 GW and the total utility-scale contracted pipeline to 69 GW. Wooden Mackenzie can be forecasting 18 p.c progress in residential photo voltaic in 2021.
“The report is each thrilling in that we’re poised to quadruple our progress within the subsequent 9 years. That is a fairly wonderful place to take a seat,” mentioned Hopper. “And, even when we do this, we’re not on observe to succeed in our local weather objectives. So it’s each inspiring and supplies a actuality test concerning the want for extra insurance policies to permit us to succeed in these local weather objectives.”