Made-in-Vietnam solar panels are exempt from tariffs to the US for two years

On June 6, US President Joe Biden announced a 24-month tax exemption for solar panels imported from four Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam.

The move aims to temporarily facilitate US solar deployers’ ability to source solar modules and cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam by providing that those components can be imported free of certain duties for 24 months. It will help ensure that the US has a sufficient supply of solar modules to meet its electricity generation needs while domestic manufacturing can ramp up operations.

The president also activated the use of the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of clean energy technologies, including solar panel parts in the US.

The White House stressed that clean energy technologies are a critical part of the arsenal the US must harness to lower energy costs for families, reduce risks to its power grid, and tackle the urgent crisis of a changing climate.

From day one, President Biden has mobilised investment in these critical technologies. Thanks to his clean energy and climate agenda, last year marked the largest deployment of solar, wind, and batteries in US history.

The US is also now on track to triple domestic solar manufacturing capacity by 2024, from 7.5GW to a total of 22.5GW – enough to enable more than 3.3 million homes to switch to clean solar energy each year.

According to Rystad Energy, panels from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand made up 85 per cent of all solar power capacity imported to the US last year, and 99 per cent in the first two months of 2022.

The latest announcement by the US President successfully averts a US Commerce Department probe that might result in much higher duties on some imported solar panel components from four Southeast Asian nations.