Well in case you didn't hear, it looks like panel costs may rise. New duties are being applied. according to a comment in this article one manufacturer will be hit with a 174 % increase. It wont just be Chinese panels that will rise, now domestic manufacturers wont have to compete as aggressively. I have already noticed some changes in retail pricing in anticipation of this, and one brand that's now not offered for sale (that I can find),
And this on top of a dollar that has dropped so much.
“The tariffs are the biggest step backwards Canada has made in the past 10 years towards replacing fossil fuels with renewables,” said Dave Egles, president of HES Home Energy Solutions Inc., a Victoria, B.C.-based distributor of solar systems and other electrical products. He said the tariffs will cause a price increase of at least 10 per cent to his customers – firms that install solar panels. That will cause fewer people to install projects, which would have helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
While the tariffs are designed to protect Canadian solar panel manufacturers – four of whom initiated the federal review by complaining about cut-rate Chinese panels – the damage to employment will outweigh any gains, Mr. Egles said. As many as 5,000 solar installers and ancillary workers could be out of work in the coming year, he said.
Ron Kortekaas, the owner of solar installation firm Eco Alternative Energy in Sharbot Lake, Ont., said the new tariffs will undoubtedly increase his costs, because he buys imported Chinese panels. Those higher costs will be passed on to customers, so “it will probably put a dent in our sales,” he said.
The Ontario-based panel manufacturing companies that initially complained – Eclipsall Energy Corp., Heliene Inc., Silfab Ontario Inc. and Solgate Inc. – say unfair competition from dumped Chinese panels means they are losing sales and market share, putting them under pressure to cut prices at a time when margins are already thin.
Heliene president Martin Pochtaruk said the preliminary CBSA ruling “is a positive step in the right direction to level the playing field in terms of competition.” He also noted that several other countries – including the United States – have found that Chinese solar panels were dumped into their markets, and have put in place punitive tariffs.
Chris Stern, a former executive at North America-wide solar installer Pure Energies who is now a consultant to the industry, said similar U.S. tariffs have pushed up prices for consumers in that country. The Canadian duties will prevent “more jobs from being created as fewer people will be inclined to install solar,” Mr. Stern said, noting that the installation business generates far more employment than panel manufacturing.
One key company in the sector – Guelph, Ont.-based Canadian Solar Inc. – is in an unusual position on both sides of the issue; it manufactures panels in Canada, as well as in China. Panels imported from Canadian Solar’s Chinese plants will be hit with a 174-per-cent duty under the provisional ruling. Its Canadian-made panels, which make up more than 90 per cent of its sales in this country, will not be hit.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.