SEIA Report: Boost US Solar Supply Chain, Reduce Reliance on China
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) issued a whitepaper advocating for strengthening the U.S. solar supply chain and reducing reliance on imports, Daily Energy Insider reported on Friday.
The plan, titled "American Solar and Storage Manufacturing Renaissance: Managing the Transition Away from China,"aims to scale up domestic production and reduce reliance on China without completely abandoning global markets and supply chains. It suggests that the U.S. could have a leading solar and energy storage industry by the end of the decade with the current policy environment being supportive.
SEIA's plan suggests that the U.S. can manufacture all components of the solar supply chain in both the medium and long term. The solar and energy storage industry in the United States will become the most competitive and collaborative in the world, powered by American workers and supported by its allies
“American control of the solar supply chain is critical for our national security and economic strength,” Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA president, and CEO said. “China is not going to willingly give up its market share, so we must be methodical and strategic about how we capitalize on the policy certainty from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and build this American clean energy manufacturing engine,” she added.
According to the SEIA analysis, IRA is expected to create roughly 34,000 manufacturing jobs immediately and over 115,000 solar manufacturing jobs by the end of the decade.
The SEIA whitepaper comes amid the warning from U.S. officials to the leaders of the American clean energy transition to ramp up their decarbonization efforts and prevent China from dominating the supply chain.
