Bifacial solar modules will be officially exempted from President Trump’s trade tariffs later today.
Modules imported from all the major producing countries are levied at 25% currently, falling to 20% in February next year under the Section 201 measures.
A statement by the US trade representative yesterday confirmed that the exemption would be lodged on the Federal Register on Thursday.
Many Chinese manufacturers face both anti-dumping duties and the Section 201 levies. Between January and September 2018, only 46MW of modules were imported from mainland China to the US. The latest twist creates a route to market for China-sourced modules into the US.
Bifacial breakthrough
The technology has spent some time hamstrung by a lack of performance data. This has made some investors wary of financing projects. As technology costs have continued to fall a new strategy has emerged to sidestep the ‘chicken-and-egg’ situation. Developers of three different projects on three different continents have told PV Tech that they are essentially financing bifacial solar projects based on projections of the front-side power only. After a few years of operation, site-specific data on the yield from the rear side will present the opportunity to refinance based on power from both sides, theoretically lowering the cost of that finance.