Solar Manufacturing: The Problem with Canadian Competitiveness
Episode description
This week, our guest is Paolo Maccario, President and CEO of Silfab Solar. Silfab Solar is a Canadian company headquartered in Mississauga that manufactures solar panels in Ontario, Washington State, and South Carolina. The South Carolina facility will manufacture solar panels and cells with operations expected to be online in the third quarter of 2024. Cells are a critical input to making modules, and the South Carolina facility will be the first of its kind in North America.
Paolo explains that with the significant incentives offered in the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Canada is unable to compete with the United States to attract investment in solar panel manufacturing facilities.
Here are some of the questions that Peter and Jackie ask Paolo: Why have the share prices for publicly traded solar manufacturing companies fallen this year? How has solar panel pricing changed in the past year? Have the US tariffs on Chinese panels resulted in a boost for US domestic manufacturing? How impactful are the IRA incentives for solar manufacturing, both the production tax credit (PTC) and the investment tax credit (ITC)? How do the incentives in Canada compare with the United States? What is the efficiency of solar panels today, and is there room for improvement? How can manufacturers keep up with the rapid pace of technical innovation? What is the state of solar panel recycling? The Canadian government has offered more generous incentives for producing lithium-ion batteries, how do the jobs for manufacturing batteries compare with solar panels?
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