As we, and a few others, have pointed out over the years and especially since the so-called Inflation Reduction Act was passed, the U.S. solar market and incentives are basically a mechanism to transfer wealth to China.
From the Wall Street Journal, September 15, a deep dive on where we are right now and what needs to be done to approach that much-talked-about target, energy security.:
To compete in a business dominated by its geopolitical rival, the U.S. needs to build a supply chain nearly from scratch
Solar accounts for about 4% of U.S. power generation. President Biden and other advocates of green energy are trying to boost that number significantly. To make that happen, though, the U.S. would need to build a supply chain almost from scratch.
At the moment, the U.S. has little or no manufacturing for almost any component needed to produce solar energy. China, which can produce solar components less expensively, controls more than 80% of the supply chain, dominating the manufacture of solar panels and other vital equipment. In recent years, China has spent almost 10 times as much on solar manufacturing as the U.S. and Europe combined.
In a bid to boost U.S. solar production, President Biden in August signed into law the bill dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides bonus tax credits to renewable-power projects that use American-made equipment, as well as incentives for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbine blades and other components in the U.S. The Energy Department forecasts solar will need to grow to at least 37% of the U.S. power mix by 2035 to hit the Biden administration’s clean-energy targets.
With vast deposits of oil and gas, the U.S. has largely avoided the energy shortages Europe now faces in the wake of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s restrictions on fuel exports. The U.S. government and green energy advocates, however, want to boost energy production from sources that emit less greenhouse gas.
The administration has framed investments in green energy partly as a bid for greater energy security. At the United Nations climate-change conference in Egypt last week, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry called green-energy technologies such as solar panels a matter of national security.
If the U.S. becomes more reliant on solar power, depending on China for equipment could present a security risk, politicians and energy executives said. Bottlenecks in the manufacture and shipping of solar components during the pandemic, along with deteriorating U.S.-China relations, have exacerbated supply-chain concerns.
Spurred by the incentives outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act, some green energy companies say they are increasing investments in U.S. manufacturing. First Solar, the biggest solar-panel maker in the U.S., said in August it would spend up to $1.2 billion to increase its U.S. manufacturing capacity by 75%, citing the tax credits as a primary reason.
Hanwha Solutions Corp., a member of South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, said it would invest billions of dollars in building its own solar supply chain in the U.S., and plans to apply for tax credits. Its Qcells unit is assessing sites in Texas, Georgia and South Carolina for facilities to make solar components, according to documents the company filed in Texas in July.
More than 40 gigawatts of new solar-panel plants are in various stages of planning in the U.S., almost five times what the U.S. has now, said Andy Klump, chief executive of Clean Energy Associates, a consulting firm that helps renewable-energy companies with supply chains.
For now, though, domestic manufacturers are still largely dependent on components and processes available only overseas, industry executives said....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see:China's Dominance In Solar Manufacturing
Going Green: "The battle over raw materials will decide who rules the world"
"Dem Support for Chinese Forced Labor Sanctions Imperils Biden’s Solar Energy Agenda"
As the young people might have said thirty years ago: "Homegirl don't play."
If they were talking your E to the S to the G.
And Ms Kaminska had been in Compton rather than London....
Izabella Kaminska Has Some Thoughts On Renewables
And because of the intermittency problem you need storage for solar:"There’s a Global Race to Control Batteries—and China Is Winning"
China Controls the Lithium Ion Battery Supply Chain and Electric Vehicle Dominance Is In Sight
"Western Europe claims 43% of global investments in battery manufacturing projects — report"And China is the world's largest producer of batteries and has the lion's (Li ion?) share of the battery materials supply chain.
ICYMI: "The king of nickel is betting big on a green future in batteries"
- "10 charts show China’s grip on battery supply chain to last decades"
- Going Green: "The battle over raw materials will decide who rules the world"
- "Western Europe claims 43% of global investments in battery manufacturing projects — report"
And many, many more.
