In April, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Qcells, a solar panel manufacturing facility in Dalton, Ga., to announce an early triumph of the Inflation Reduction Act: Summit Ridge Energy, one of the nation’s largest developers of community solar projects, would purchase 2.5 million U.S.-made solar panels.Subsidies under the new law brought the price in line with that of imported panels, allowing the companies to fight climate change and promote American manufacturing in one fell swoop.A month later, the Treasury Department issued guidance that functionally would require the solar cells — not just the panels — to be made in the United States for Summit Ridge to have confidence that it will get its 10 percent tax credit on installations that use them. Qcells won’t be able to produce cells until late 2024, sending Summit Ridge scrambling to find cheaper components for projects currently in its pipeline.“There’s not a single solar manufacturer who fully qualifies for this at this …
