hwy17
Anti-Solar Enthusiast
I considered posting this in chit chat. It might need to be moved there if we can't keep ourselves under control, but let's try.
We in the US already live in a tariffed solar panel world, we more or less can't order straight from China, and the panels available to us on the US market come at a considerable premium to the global market. There's an exception for bifacial right now, which is cool, but we still end up paying $.30-.50 typically on the new market.
Lifepo4 battery manufacturing is trying to start up in the US: ABF, ONE, a whole raft of silly generic acronym startups are apparently on their way to try and start production. I am doubtful they are going to produce much for us, factory seconds will probably not leak out to end users and will get bought up by big money ESS instead. And even if we can get our hands on them, the factories won't have the practice and refinement that China has already gone through. I'm picturing EVE 280 V2 style disappointments, but worse.
At the same time, Chinese production has accelerated exponentially for a while and we're now looking at a supply glut and cratering prices.
I think it's possible now and the rest 2024 might be a mini golden age for us, and there is a good chance that in 2025 onwards the federal government is going to end up putting tariffs on the Chinese Lifepo4 to protect western manufacturing.
The counterargument that we can hope for is that they will keep applying the pressure by hinging the EV subsidies on the origin instead, so the EV market will be incentivized to buy American, but the ESS and DIY markets will be allowed to keep eating the global supply.
We in the US already live in a tariffed solar panel world, we more or less can't order straight from China, and the panels available to us on the US market come at a considerable premium to the global market. There's an exception for bifacial right now, which is cool, but we still end up paying $.30-.50 typically on the new market.
Lifepo4 battery manufacturing is trying to start up in the US: ABF, ONE, a whole raft of silly generic acronym startups are apparently on their way to try and start production. I am doubtful they are going to produce much for us, factory seconds will probably not leak out to end users and will get bought up by big money ESS instead. And even if we can get our hands on them, the factories won't have the practice and refinement that China has already gone through. I'm picturing EVE 280 V2 style disappointments, but worse.
At the same time, Chinese production has accelerated exponentially for a while and we're now looking at a supply glut and cratering prices.
I think it's possible now and the rest 2024 might be a mini golden age for us, and there is a good chance that in 2025 onwards the federal government is going to end up putting tariffs on the Chinese Lifepo4 to protect western manufacturing.
The counterargument that we can hope for is that they will keep applying the pressure by hinging the EV subsidies on the origin instead, so the EV market will be incentivized to buy American, but the ESS and DIY markets will be allowed to keep eating the global supply.
