SEIA Guide: Revival of Optical Storage Manufacturing in the United States! Far away from China's supply chain
The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) has issued a white paper with the goal of establishing a stronger domestic solar energy supply chain in the United States and reducing dependence on global imports, especially imports from China.
SEIA said in a press release that the report entitled "Revitalization of the U.S. solar and energy storage manufacturing industry: transformation management away from China" outlined a plan to reduce imports, which is consistent with the manufacturing transfer of key parts of the supply chain and the efforts to expand domestic production scale.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA, said, "The control of the solar energy supply chain by the United States is crucial to our national security and economic strength. China will not willingly give up its market share. Therefore, strategically, we must consider how to use the determined policies proposed by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to build the manufacturing engine of clean energy in the United States."
The document claims that in the medium and long term, the current policy environment is sufficient to support all manufacturing elements of the solar energy supply chain in the United States. It also pointed out that this independence does not mean that the United States will cut off its connection with the global moral market, but will take advantage of this opportunity to reduce the United States' dependence on China and other potential competitors' clean energy equipment and materials.
SEIA also released an interactive map to track new and existing solar and energy storage manufacturing plants in the United States. The map includes the new investment in clean energy manufacturing announced since the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act and the historic investment in domestic manufacturing industry. This map includes the facilities on the whole solar energy and energy storage value chain, including the production facilities of raw materials such as polysilicon, solar module plants and solar components such as support and tracking system.
Users can filter the map according to product type, facility size, location, job position, total investment and output. The map includes the 42GW solar module capacity announced by the United States so far, which marks that SEIA has made significant progress in achieving the established target area of 50GW domestic capacity by 2030.
According to SEIA's analysis, it is expected that IRA will increase the number of solar manufacturing jobs in the United States from about 34000 now to more than 150000 by the end of this decade. By 2030, nearly 20% of solar energy jobs will be in the manufacturing industry, which is about 12.5% at present.
Hopper said, "Thanks to the IRA, the pattern of solar manufacturing has changed. The announced plan will create up to 80000 high-quality jobs and provide support for families. This is just the tip of the iceberg. With the rapid implementation of the manufacturing tax incentives, more high-paying solar jobs will be launched in succession."
