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Green Globe: India exempt from US solar tariffs despite trade dispute

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Green Globe: India exempt from US solar tariffs despite trade dispute

President Donald Trump has exempted 100 developing countries from tariffs on solar materials, including India – a country that the United States has been sparring with for nearly five years over its own policies against foreign suppliers.

On Jan. 22, Trump signed off on placing tariffs of 30% on foreign solar cells and panels in response to a petition from two financially-strapped solar manufacturers, Suniva Inc and Solarworld Americas Inc. Three days later, Trump approved an addendum to exclude developing countries that are members of the World Trade Organization, or WTO, and whose shipments do not exceed 3% of total solar equipment imports to the U.S.

That includes India, whose protectionist measures to shield its domestic solar industry from foreign competition have sparked pushback from the U.S. government. India added new regulations in 2011 that require solar developers who sell electricity to government agencies to purchase solar cells and modules domestically. In February 2013, President Barack Obama's administration filed a complaint with WTO, claiming India's rules were hurting American imports into India, launching back-and-forth litigation.

In 2016, WTO's dispute settlement board decided that India's rules discriminated against U.S. imported solar cells and modules in breach of international trade rules. But the Trump administration filed another complaint on Dec 17, 2017, saying India was still not complying with the WTO's recommendations.

It is unclear whether or not the move to exempt India from the solar tariffs is related to the U.S.'s WTO complaint, said Paul Nathanson, a spokesperson for the Energy Trade Action Coalition, which opposes tariffs. Of the developing countries listed in Trump's proclamation, India is the biggest importer of solar materials to the U.S., but its shipments made up only 0.08% of solar imports in 2016. Either way, Nathanson does not believe the exemptions will do much to scale back the tariffs' effects.

"For those who are from the solar industry and those who consume solar, this doesn't mitigate our concerns that this is going to have a negative effect both on the jobs in the solar industry and on the competitiveness of solar with other energies," he said in an interview.

Dan Whitten, the Solar Energy Industries Association's vice president of communications, pointed out that the countries on the exempt list are already designated as eligible beneficiaries for the Generalized System of Preferences, a trade program allowing developing countries to export products into the U.S. duty-free. If the exempted country exceeds 3% of total imports, then the tariff will apply to it.

"While a positive development, this will not alleviate the harm that this decision will cause our nation's economy and job growth," he said in an email. The Solar Energy Industries Association has said that approximately 23,000 solar manufacturing jobs will be lost due to the solar tariffs.

The 28 member countries of the European Union, generated more electricity from wind, solar and biomass than from coal in 2017. According to Carbon Brief, think tanks Sandbag and Agora Energiewende found that those renewables supply 20.9% of electricity in the EU, up from less than 10% in 2010. Coal and gas, meanwhile, are slightly lower at 20.6% and 19.7%, as EU members such as the United Kingdom and Italy continue to work on shutting down coal plants.

While renewable power has been expanding in the quest to cut carbon emissions, EU power sector emissions did not budge in 2017. Low-carbon sources met 56% of energy demand for the third year in a row.

Elsewhere

* Germany-based utility E.ON SE announced it will allow solar customers to store energy in virtual accounts in the cloud without battery storage.

* China's regulators approved the proposed merger of China Nuclear Engineering Corp. Ltd and China National Nuclear Corp., giving the new company a combined $100 billion in assets and 150,000 employees, according to Reuters.

* Companies in Canada are projected to add as much as 600 MW of wind energy in 2018 despite record low prices.

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