Accessing adders beneath the Inflation Discount Act (IRA) referring to home content material necessities and native labour utilization are actually receiving much more consideration than points round imports, in line with power regulation agency Baker Botts.
Whereas the business is welcoming the “long-term stability” the IRA gives, there’s nonetheless uncertainty relating to the principles round home content material in addition to how one can finest entry adders corresponding to prevailing wages and apprenticeships, in line with Eli Hinckley and Ellen Friedman, companions at Baker Botts.
The legal professionals have been chatting with PV Tech on the RE+ 2022 business occasion in Anaheim, California.
This uncertainty relating to how one can entry the utmost variety of incentives beneath the IRA is developing extra usually then questions round pressured labour proof packages or the legality of current government orders, the companions mentioned, demonstrating the need from the US photo voltaic sector to take advantage of assist contained inside the IRA.
The uncertainty is broadly associated to the absence of clear guidelines for home content material thresholds, how a lot of a photo voltaic product’s parts should be US-made to qualify for the assist and a scarcity of readability on prevailing wages and apprenticeship adders, Hinckley and Friedman mentioned.
For the reason that IRA passing, many corporations have expressed their need to buildout their US manufacturing bases with the intention to cater for projected US demand however authorized points will stay if all the parts of that product should be sourced from the US. Given the US remains to be considerably missing when it comes to the upstream PV manufacturing of polysilicon, ingots and wafers, this may very well be a pertinent difficulty shifting ahead, Friedman advised PV Tech.
On high of this, the siting of upstream amenities corresponding to polysilicon might throw up their very own authorized questions. Polysilicon manufacturing, for instance, is extraordinarily power intensive and emits massive quantities of carbon. Communities might problem any proposed venture on environmental grounds, dragging the method on and lengthening timeframes, the companions famous.
PV Tech Premium has beforehand reported how US builders are stockpiling PV modules for 2024 as they grow to be more and more not sure about what occurs when President Joe Biden’s government order waiving tariffs from Southeast Asia runs out.
On the time, Baker Botts particular counsel Kyle Hayes, mentioned he has purchasers who’re working exhausting to “safe capability and pricing for 2025 to 2027, understanding that the Biden tariff waiver will expire in June 2024,” he defined, “so that they’re attempting to get forward of that if the worst-case state of affairs manifests itself.”
