Title of Dissertation: national renewable energy policy

Policy as a source of risks and conflicts in the market 
 
Despite the rapid growth of the U.S. solar market, the solar corporations have 
perceived risks and conflicts in the market. Most of these have caused from policies. For 
the other drivers of market growth, the corporations agreed that those have been positive 
factors. Among the policies, the ITC and the tariff on the Chinese solar panels have 
introduced significant risks to the actors in the market although the degrees of impacts 
were different among them.
The ITC has affected mostly project developers and independent power 
producers. It has directly influenced the cost of the solar projects. Module manufacturers, 
however, said that they also have risks due to the undecided ITC extension. One module 
producer stated: “ITC might be expiring, customers rush into fulfill their projects, and 
now is a huge spike and we don’t have capacity to support it, and neither do we want to 
expand capacity to meet this demand because next year, the following year of 2017, it’s 
gonna drop. And then, what do you do with the excess of capacity?”
164
The undecided 
ITC was likely to make a boom-and-bust cycle in the solar market. Since it affects the 
demand and the supply of the market, the effects have expanded to the whole solar PV 
value chain. 
The tariff on Chinese solar panels has generated risks to solar corporations and 
conflicts between them. Although the tariff was to address the risks of the U.S. 
manufacturers in the market, it has caused new risks by introducing the possibility of the 
increase of solar cost. During the policymaking process, there was conflicts of interests 
between solar PV corporations. Even after the tariff was set as a policy, the Chinese solar 
164
Interview #9 

---

142 
manufacturers have faced risks since the rate is hard to predict. Moreover, the tariff has 
caused a new risk to the U.S. polysilicon manufacturers since Chinese government started 
anti-dumping investigation on the U.S. polysilicon imports. 
Other policies than the ITC and the tariff have also posed risks to solar PV 
corporations. Many corporations perceived risks and uncertainty caused by state-level 
policies such as Renewable Portfolio Standard, net metering, and incentives. A module 
manufacturer described state-level policies as “chaotic” since they have kept changing.
165
Many solar PV corporations have seen risks from state-level policies since the policies 
were undecided for a longer-term or the incentives have decreased. 
The reactions of the solar PV industry to the changing environment