solar panel increased cost

MO

moveinon

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Joined
Apr 30, 2016
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156
Location
Milwaukie Oregon
The President just instituted a 30% tariff on imported solar panels and 50% on washers. So anyone who is considering purchasing solar for their camper may want to look at getting soon because the prices will certainly go up substantially soon as most inexpensive solar is imported right now.
 
I thought about this today too. We've got our current solar setup, but I'm designing a build for our Sprinter that will take two panels. I'm disappointed to learn they will now go up 30%+ and to hear there are 23k lost jobs in the industry.
 
If the American-made panels will now be exactly the same price as the overseas ones, then the customer can still shop for the best product. However, if the 30% tariff has now priced the same quality panels much higher, then consumers will buy the American panel for the most part.

If the overseas panels are now much costlier, I would like to know who bought how much stock in what American solar panel companies and when...ya know what I mean?
 
The funny thing is that two of the companies that were lobbying for this are German (SolarWorld) and Chinese (Suniva) owned but happen to manufacture in the US. I am also not convinced that he US manufactured panels are necessarily any better quality than foreign manufactured panels. This will also likely lead to an across the board increase in cost - if the cost of imports increases, the domestic manufacturers will still try to charge a premium for their panels, meaning across the board increase. However it likely won't effect the small scale sellers on ebay and the like who would be well under the 2.5GW cap.
 
I've been considering getting an additional panel for a while. Might have to bite the bullet now.
Bother, I forget who and where link was recently posted for some good priced panels.
 
On-line price for Solar Cynergy 120 W bendable solar panels from Solar Blvd went from $119 yesterday to $129 today.

Roughly a 10% increase. They showed 74 panels in stock yesterday and now show 72 panels in stock.


Craig
 
I was reading that big energy (non-solar/wind) was also behind this. Something about driving the price of foreign solar panels/wind renewable energy products up so that US made RE products will have time to gear up and take over the market, then (here is the catch) after 3 years the tariffs will end and renewable energy will cost more than our subsidized nonrenewable energy so we can keep using that and we can return to the glories of the coal/oil using past! Or as a worse case situation, big energy will have three years to make a killing. Does this sound plausible?

Smoke
 
"Follow The Money"

Smoke....I'd say those considerations are right on the money. Remember, the new corporate tax rate is permanent while the teensy-weensy tax break(s) you may or may not get will go away in a few years.

We have the best Government money can buy!
 
Smoke I think you are right on. The German Solar World plant close to me expects to add 300-500 people to their work force and I do not know about Suniva, the Chinese Company. But the projection for solar installers and other associated business is a loss of 26,000 jobs as a result of this tariff. It means it is not a job plan but more of a forced cost increase to compete with fossil fuels. It is not a surprise that cost increases have already started even though companies have pre-tariff stock. By raising the price 10% now they can somewhat soften the blow from what would have been a larger (30%) increase down the road.
 
Also another blow to the home solar industry is,there isn't a Fed tax credit as of 2018.
We just got in under the end.We added another 1800w to our 1800w we have had for 9 years.
We'll see where it all goes.
Frank
 
Can't wait to see all those smoke stacks just shooting all that nice black smoke into the sky again (as they burn all those solar panels)! Guess all we can do is keep writing those letters, attending meetings and sending emails and of course VOTE.

Smoke
 
And install solar at your home which is what I did 4 years ago and never looked back. Grid tied with no electric bill. Ron
 
ckent323 said:
On-line price for Solar Cynergy 120 W bendable solar panels from Solar Blvd went from $119 yesterday to $129 today.

Roughly a 10% increase. They showed 74 panels in stock yesterday and now show 72 panels in stock.


Craig
Click to expand...
Solar Blvd regularly bounces back and forth on their prices....just call them and ask when the panel you want will go back on sale.

David Graves
 
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