SEMA Coalition Encourages Biden Administration to Strengthen Domestic Content Bonus

Washington, DC – Today, the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition submitted comments for consideration to update the domestic content bonus established in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

“The Biden Administration and Congress made a commitment to reshore the entire solar supply chain with the Inflation Reduction Act, but that will not be possible without updating the domestic content bonus,” said Mike Carr, Executive Director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition. “Recognizing the fundamental purpose of the domestic content bonus is to drive demand for the output of U.S. clean energy manufacturing investments and reshoring efforts, Treasury must incentivize U.S. wafer production as part of implementing the domestic content bonus.”

Carr continued, “the current guidance subverts congressional intent by ignoring components such as polysilicon and wafer, most critical to the success of reshoring the solar supply chain and securing our nation’s energy security. To stop this and ensure a strong U.S. manufacturing supply chain, the Treasury must revise its guidance.”

SEMA’s comments note that Treasury’s proposed guidance on the IRA domestic content bonus credit still fall short of effectively and successfully implementing the credit, and urge Treasury to revise its proposed table of percentage values for manufactured product components (MPCs) by:

• Adding certain core MPCs notably omitted from the table (e.g. wafer);
• Removing non-strategic MPCs from the table;
• Standardizing the value for MPCs into a single column/table to create a generalized, predictable approach that can be easily implemented across all project types, and that can be relied upon for making significant investment decisions in manufacturing; and
• Ensuring costs are representative of U.S. manufacturing for capital and operating expenses to achieve the intended purpose of the statute.

The coalition’s counter proposal also outlines the specific steps that Treasury needs to take to accomplish these goals.