According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which was signed into law by President Biden in December last year, is reducing solar installation forecasts in the near term and delaying the impact of the US’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The flagship IRA, which was passed by the US senate over the summer, makes the largest investment in carbon emissions reduction in the country’s history.
The bill allocates $369bn (£302bn) to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewable energy sources as part of efforts to reduce America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40 per cent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.
In the third quarter of 2022, the US added 4.6 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity, a 17 per cent decrease from the same quarter last year.
More than 1,000 shipments of solar energy imports worth hundreds of millions of dollars have piled up at US ports since the introduction...