Who’s Really Behind The Super Secret Solar Tariffs Petition?
The US solar industry is in an uproar over a group of petitions before the Department of Commerce, which seek to impose heavy new tariffs on imported solar panels and solar cells. The writers of the petitions have chosen to remain anonymous and now the guessing game is on. So, who is behind those solar tariff petitions?
What’s The Big Deal About Solar Panel Tariffs?
If you’re new to the topic of solar panel tariffs, all you need to know is one thing: the number of actual soup-to-nuts solar manufacturers in the US is vanishingly small. Almost all of the domestic manufacturing in the US is done with imported panels and cells, among other parts. That means tariffs can make or break key players and put a damper on the entire domestic industry.
It’s not quite that simple, because other elements can come into play. The Trump administration put a crimp in the industry when it imposed new solar tariffs in January 2018, but technology improvements, new solar financing instruments, and the use of solar panels not covered by the tariffs helped keep the industry up and running.
Supply chain security is another complicating factor. As with the Obama administration, the Biden administration is trying to ramp up domestic supplies of key parts and materials. That’s going to take time. As things stand now, the US is going to have to continue relying on imports to accelerate solar installation in accord with the President’s ambitious climate action plan.
So, Who’s Really Behind The New Solar Panel Tariffs?
Into this picture steps a group of anonymous companies petitioning the Department of Commerce to impose new tariffs of 50% to 250% on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels and cells from Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand, according to an angry letter fired off by the Solar Industries Association of America earlier this week. The letter was signed by 190 or so US solar stakeholders.
In the letter, SEIA demanded to know who was behind the petitions. If you know how to look up petitions at the Department of Commerce, have at it. We searched under “crystalline silicon photovoltaic” and came up with four recent and not-so-anonymous requests for relief.
The first occurred in 2017 during the Trump administration and was filed on behalf of Suniva. The next one popped up in 2019, on behalf of “United States Trade Representative.”
Then it was radio silence until last month, when two petitions popped up. One was filed on behalf of Suniva and Auxin Solar, and the other was filed on behalf of Hanwha Q Cells USA, LG Electronics USA, and Mission Solar Energy.
If you’re having an a-ha moment, you might have to guess again. Auxin, Suniva, Hanwha, and LG were not among the 190 solar companies that signed on to the SEIA letter, but Mission Solar does appear on the list.
So, either Mission is playing both sides against the middle, or it has one hand that doesn’t know what the other is doing, or there are two different companies called Mission Solar. Or something else is going on.
Either way, neither of the August petitions are the ones upon which SEIA is aiming its wrath. According to news reports last month, several petitions were that were filed in August have yet to be published by the Commerce Department.
Who Really Supports Solar Panel Tariffs?
One might look for a hint among the solar companies that publicly supported the Trump administration on solar panel tariffs. One was Suniva, which later filed for bankruptcy. In 2019 our friends over at Quartz reported that Suniva later-later successfully reorganized through the New York firm Lion Point Capital.
Quartz also noted that the German company SolarWorld Industries’ wholly owned subsidiary SolarWorld Americas supported the Trump tariffs before it, too, filed for bankruptcy. Its assets were purchased by SunPower in 2018.
SolarWorld Americas did surface again in 2020, when the D.C. law firm Wiley represented it in a tariff case against the Chinese company Sunpreme in California (more on that in a sec).
What Is The American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention?
As for the identities of the anonymous petitions, the answer still lies somewhere deep within the halls of Wiley, which is also representing those filers. In a press release dated August 16, Wiley cites the organization American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention as the entity behind the anonymous petitions.
By circumvention, they allege that Chinese companies have off-shored much of their solar business to Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, while continuing to hold a firm grip on subsidized manufacturing and R&D at home. The Wiley press release names many names including affiliates of Jinko Solar in Malaysia, Canadian Solar Manufacturing in Thailand, and Trina Solar in Vietnam.
Wiley’s August press release was widely reported, but nobody seems to have found a website or any other background information about an organization named the American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention, other than there are reportedly several solar companies in the group.
That thing about anonymity brings up another case of interest involving Wiley and privacy. Last March, the firm issued a press release that describes two amicus briefs it filed in support of organizations challenging a California law that requires all charities operating within the state to disclose their major donors to the California Attorney General.
One was filed in support of the Thomas More Law Center and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The other was filed jointly with the American Legislative Exchange Council.
If ALEC rings a bell, it should. Among other issues, the organization has been linked to obstruction on climate action, leading climate activists and other stakeholders to try and shed light on its donors.
Wily’s amicus brief with ALEC goes beyond First Amendment issues to describe why anonymity is so important to charitable organizations like ALEC.
“…ALEC’s brief highlights an organized campaign to defame, harass, and boycott ALEC members as well as members of other organizations over several decades using compulsory disclosure as a tool,” Wiley explains in its press release.
“The brief details how public officials allied with private activists tried to obtain rosters of ALEC’s ‘members and private contributors’ for the purpose of using that information ‘to ruin ALEC and eliminate its ideas from the public square,’” Wiley adds.
Do tell! Let’s go back to those anonymous circumvention petitions that Wiley filed in August. PV Magazine’s reporting included an interview with Wiley partner Timothy Brightbill, who explained the reasoning behind the anonymity:
“[Brightbill] declined to name members of the antidumping organization, saying that ‘Given the Chinese control of the entire solar supply chain, retaliation is likely if their identities are revealed.’ In such situations, the companies who make up the coalition ‘are allowed under U.S. law to remain confidential,’ he said.”
That seems to settle that. Wiley and Brightbill also represented SolarWorld Americas in that 2020 legal action, so it seems that anonymity cuts a fine cloth in matters such as these.
The Commerce Department has until September 30 to answer the anonymous petitions, so stay tuned for more on that.
Follow me on Twitter @TinaMCasey.
Photo: Solar panels via US Department of Energy.
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It sounds like Tesla jumped the gun when announcing that Nissan drivers now have access to the Supercharger network in North America.
They will have to wait a bit.
Yesterday, we reported that Tesla added Nissan to the list of automakers with EVs capable of using the Supercharger network in North America.
However, Tesla has since removed Nissan from its list of automakers with access and switched the Japanese automaker back to the “coming soon” list.
Nissan confirmed to Electrek that access is not currently available, but it will be available by the end of the year.
It sounds like a miscommunication on Tesla’s side. We hear that it should be coming soon.
Elon Musk fired Tesla’s entire charging team – seemingly to make an example of its then-head of charging, Rebecca Tinucci, who reportedly disagreed with Musk about making further layoffs following another layoff wave.
Instead of just firing her, Musk decided to fire the entire team and then sent an email to other Tesla managers using the charging team situation as a warning.
Tesla has since had to rehire several former members of its charging team to rebuild the department.
This is believed to have slowed down the opening of the Supercharger network to other automakers in North America. We were told that communications with Tesla’s charging team were difficult to non-existent for those automakers for weeks earlier this year.
As we have previously reported, the situation has definitely slowed down Tesla’s own deployment of Supercharger stations.
Nonetheless, the Supercharger network recently hit the milestone of 60,000 chargers worldwide.
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Europe’s “green dream” Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after a rescue package failed to go through, leaving the battery maker with just one week’s worth of cash in the account. Cofounder and CEO Peter Carlsson, who spearheaded a costly expansion, has also quit.
The Swedish-owned battery maker filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas, reports Bloomberg, with $5.8 billion debt. CEO Peter Carlsson, Telsa’s former chief products officer, stepped down from his role as CEO after the filing, but will remain onboard as advisor and director.
According to a statement, Northvolt said that its main factory will maintain business as usual during the reorganization, as the company now has a buffer from creditors, giving it time to restructure the balance sheet. However, the company said that this will not impact its business in Germany, and through the court process, Northvolt now has access to about $145 million in cash collateral. An additional $100 million in debtor-in-possession financing will be added to the pot via one of its customers, the report said.
In recent weeks, Northvolt has been in intense negotiations in the hope of securing a $300 million rescue package to give the company a bit more time to seek longer-term funding. But when that deal fell through, the battery maker was forced to seek protection from creditors via the Chapter 11 filing.
The company still has a $7 billion project in place in Quebec – a new campus that is set to include a cell production plant, battery recycling, and cathode active-material production facilities – and the bankruptcy won’t affect those plans, the company said on its website. “Northvolt Germany and Northvolt North America, subsidiaries of Northvolt AB with projects in Germany and Canada, are financed separately and will continue to operate as usual outside of the Chapter 11 process as key parts of Northvolt’s strategic positioning.”
The plant is expected to have capacity to produce 30 GWh of battery cell every year, with an expansion set to double that output, making it enough to power 1 million EVs. The Canadian government is putting $1.334 billion CND toward the project, with Quebec chipping in another $1.37 billion CND.
Northvolt has hit hard times in recent months, once thought of as Europe’s best shot to homegrown EVs and the makers of “the world’s greenest battery.” Enthusiasm mounted as the company opened the doors to its first plant in Sweden, in the small town of Skelleftea near the Arctic Circle, in 2021. Billions of dollars have been invested into the company, and Volvo, VW, and BMW rushed to place future orders.
All of this enthusiasm has been fueled by a vision to cut dependency on China by creating greener EV batteries using 100 percent recycled nickel, manganese, and cobalt. Plans were put in place to build factories in Gothenburg, in southern Sweden, and Poland, Germany, and Canada, all backed by huge government subsidies. Back in January, the company raised an additional $5 billion, firmly locking in its position as one of Europe’s best-funded startups and recipient of the largest-ever green loan in the EU.
But then things started going south, with Northvolt’s production problems and massive delays forcing BMW to cancel its €2 billion battery cell order with the company. This past May, Northvolt also announced that it pushing back its plans for an IPO until next year. The interim report that followed revealed the dire state of its finances and how far its production had fallen short of goals, with Carlsson admitting he had been “too aggressive” with the company’s expansion plan.
Since Northvolt has put in place a series of changes to reset the company’s course, including bringing onboard a new CFO, leaving the former CFO to focus solely on expansion plans. Plus the company started making cuts, including closing down its research center, Cuberg, in San Francisco and deprioritizing secondary businesses. At the end of September, Northvolt announced that it would cut 1,600 staff from three Swedish sites and about 20 percent of its international workforce.
Last month, Volvo started proceedings to take over their joint venture with Northvolt, while Volkswagen Group’s representative to Northvolt’s board stepped down this month. Sweden, for its part, is ruling out taking a stake to save its homegrown enterprise, Bloomberg reports. Carlsson had said last month that the company needs more than $900 million to permanently shore up its finances.
Photo credit: Northvolt
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Leading yard operation 3PL YMX Logistics has announced plans to deploy fully twenty (20) of Orange EV’s fully electric Class 8 terminal trucks at a number of distribution and manufacturing sites across North America.
As the shipping and logistics industries increasingly move to embrace electrification, yard operations have proven to be an almost ideal use case for EVs, enabling companies like Orange EV, which specialize in yard hostlers or terminal tractors, to drive real, impactful change. To that end, companies like YMX are partnering with Orange EV.
“This relationship between YMX and Orange EV is a significant step forward in transforming yard operations across North America,” said Matt Yearling, CEO of YMX Logistics. “Besides the initial benefits of reduction in emissions and carbon footprint, our customers are also seeing improvements in the overall operational efficiency and seeking to expand. Our team members have also been sharing positive feedback about their new equipment and highlighting the positive impact on their health and day-to-day activities.”
This Orange looks good in blue
One of the most interesting aspects of this story – beyond the Orange EV HUSK-e XP’s almost unbelievable 180,000 lb. GCWR spec. – is that this isn’t a story about California’s ports, which mandate EVs. Instead, YMX is truly deploying these trucks throughout the country, with at least four currently in Chicago (and more on the way).
“Our collaboration with YMX Logistics represents a powerful stride in delivering sustainable yard solutions at scale for enterprise customers,” explains Wayne Mathisen, CEO of Orange EV. “With rising demand for electric yard trucks, our joint efforts ensure that more companies can access the environmental, financial, and operational benefits of electrification … this is a win for the planet, the workforce, and the bottom line of these organizations.”
We interviewed Orange EV founder Kurt Neutgens on The Heavy Equipment Podcast a few months back, but if you’re not familiar with these purpose-built trucks, it’s worth a listen.
HEP-isode 26
SOURCE | IMAGES: YMX Logistics.
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