The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has urged parties to solar sector trade disputes in the U.S., European Union (EU) and China to consider customers and service providers as well as manufacturers in their negotiations.
‘With the U.S., China and EU now moving towards potential settlement talks, we strongly encourage governments to identify, as a threshold issue, common interests across the solar supply chain,’ says SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch in a statement. ‘According to some press reports, governments are instead focused on price and quantity regulations as potential settlement options. If true, this strongly suggests that neither consumers' interests nor the direct linkage between falling costs and increased demand are being recognized in these discussions.’
Resch characterizes the apparent exclusive focus on price as ‘deeply troubling’ and says such a direction could have the unintended consequence of driving up the cost of solar energy.
