[colechristensen]

Regardless of tariffs, solar is still the cheapest energy source in the US and the fastest growing even in absolute terms.

We shoudln't let China overproduce and dump excess solar productions in its own attempts to control the market. We're trying to not repeat the energy dependence on unfriendly foreign powers. We don't want the Chinese Solar Embargo of 2026.

[philipkglass]

We shouldn't let China overproduce and dump excess solar productions in its own attempts to control the market.

I think that this misreads how the Chinese solar industry works. It's one of the less government-controlled industries in China. It's fiercely competitive, which leads to low prices, rapid change, and periodic bankruptcies. Chinese-made solar panels became popular for the same reason their T-shirts and microwave ovens became popular: acceptable quality offered at unbeatable prices.

I also think that there's low risk of lock-in from buying Chinese solar products now. Solar panels have a typical operating lifetime about equivalent to 5 years at 100% of rated power. In practice this means something more like 20 years in a solar farm in a very sunny climate or 35 years in a cloudy climate. The steady state replacement rate to maintain a nation's solar capacity is therefore about 3%-5% of the initial installation rate. If China prohibited solar panel exports, Western countries could maintain existing solar farm capacity with only tiny outside-of-China solar manufacturing capacity. There would be plenty of time for not-China countries to determine if the embargo were temporary or persistent before investing in more expensive but more dependable domestic factories.

[colechristensen]

>I also think that there's low risk of lock-in from buying Chinese solar products now.

It's not lock-in, it's price competitiveness of locally produced solar. If Chinese solar is half price, domestic industry won't exist. If relations with China further deteriorate, they may restrict access. If there was a war we'd be out a major source of energy production/growth.

Currently the US is expected to manufacture solar modules at least equal to solar installs last year.

Being able to maintain production if there was an embargo, we're seeing something like a 20% year over year growth of total installed solar.

[kragen]

20% year over year growth would mean falling further and further behind China, which is closer to 50% lately. Bookmark this comment and check back in a year to see if China's installed PV capacity grew by more or less than 20% in 02024.

Current US industrial policy is vastly inadequate for bootstrapping a domestic solar industry to international competitiveness, and the US trade barriers against cheap Chinese EVs are ensmallening the future domestic electricity market. This is a problem, because that's where domestic manufacturers have to sell their product before hypothetically achieving low enough production costs to gain a foothold in export markets.

To be quantitative, the US only installed about 34GWp of PV last year https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/28/us-added-34-gw-of-pv-... and increased its manufacturing capacity from 14.1GWp yearly to 42.1GWp yearly https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/. However, that's GWdc, and those 34GWac were actually 50GWdc. So US manufacturing capacity lags behind demand, as you'd expect given its inefficiency and consequent international uncompetitiveness.

Also, I want to point out that your idea that what companies in China should or shouldn't be allowed to produce or invest in is within the jurisdiction of the US government is a breathtaking level of central-economic-planning advocacy that even Stalin and Mao would never have admitted to. It's precisely the rejection of such central planning by Deng that permitted Mainland China to develop economically.

[colechristensen]

Why does the US need to have an internationally competitive solar export industry? We can't beat China and a lot of other countries on labor costs so unless we go crazy with automation or have some research breakthroughs for significant solar efficiency vs cost, it would never be a huge win regardless of policy. What we do need is a domestic production base for domestic usage so that solar can't become a negotiating tactic used against us, or a hindrance if international relations collapse.

Arguments about current exponential growth not being fast enough don't land with me.

[kragen]

It's not better to have a Self-Imposed Chinese Solar Embargo of 02012-02026. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43463872 for my thoughts on the implausible "dumping" story.

Promoting domestic PV panel production would be reasonable, but that's not what current US industrial policy is aimed at. Instead it's trying to resuscitate fossil fuels, like Tinkerbell, through sheer force of belief.