Maine solar installers say they are somewhat insulated from President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 30% tariff on most solar panels imported to the United States.
“It’s something we’ve seen coming for around nine months, and we’ve been planning around it,” Fortunat Mueller, co-founder of Maine’s largest solar installation company, ReVision Energy, told Maine Public.
Mueller and others said they’ve been stockpiling solar panels. Vaughan Woodruff, president of Pittsfield-based InSource Renewables, said his company buys from a Singapore manufacturer that uses American silicone, and Singapore is one of the few countries not impacted by the tariff ruling. Panels are only a part of a rooftop solar system.
The tariff “may relate to a 5% to 10% increase in the total cost of the system, because the modules are about a quarter of the total system cost,” Woodruff said.
