What the Solar Tariff Means to You

Monday, President Trump imposed a 30% tariff on imported solar cells and panels.

What does this mean to homeowners and businesses wanting to shift their electricity budgets away from the utilities and into their own clean, cost-effective solar?

Thankfully, not a lot. Don’t get me wrong, this tariff is bad news, but solar has come too far to be stalled by a misguided policy decision. Solar and wind are now our cheapest electricity sources. And more solar was installed in 2016 than any other generation source. Solar is here to stay.

To deal with the tariff, New England Clean Energy is working hard on our pricing and with our suppliers to minimize any cost increase to customers. Since cells and panels represent only about a third of a solar energy system’s cost, I can guarantee you prices to consumers will not go up by 30%. I’m confident we can keep any increase to single digits, hopefully 5% or under (subject to panel choice and other factors).

If you already have a proposal from us, we’ll honor that quote until the proposal expires.

That’s the deal from our perspective. Click here to listen to a radio interview I did on the tariff recently with WPKZ Radio.

And for more on the big picture, read on.

Industry Analysis

The tariff is a big deal, as “more than 80% of U.S. solar installations use imported panels with most coming from Asia,” according to Bloomberg. Economists and solar professionals agree the tariff will result in job losses, approximately 23,000 of the 260,000 employed in the U.S. solar industry, according to SEIA.

Still, experts agree it will not kill solar, mainly because panel price reductions of more than 70% since 2010 will offset the tariff increase.

The effective start date for the tariff is expected to be within a few weeks. The World Trade Organization may challenge the tariff, but that process will take months at a minimum.

Here’s the official fact sheet on the tariff from the government.

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