The White House said Monday that President Joe Biden waived two years of tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries and initiated a "Defense Production Act" to spur domestic solar panel production.
The Exemption applies to panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and serves as an interim role while U.S. manufacturing ramps up, the White House said.
The four Southeast Asian countries account for about 80 percent of U.S. solar panel imports. The Commerce Department investigation has caused importers to halt shipments, putting at risk more than half of the 27 gigawatts of new solar capacity that solar developers are expected to install this year, according to Rystad Energy, an Energy consulting firm.
The White House move is part of a package aimed at resolving tensions between solar power developers and utilities, which rely on cheap imported components, and domestic producers, which want to move production of solar components to the United States.
The move is in response to concerns about a nationwide freeze on solar projects and the impact on tackling climate change of an investigation into whether imports of solar panels from the four countries are bypassing tariffs on Chinese-made products.
The White House says the DEFENSE Production Act will also be used to expand the production of building insulation, heat pumps, transformers and clean-fuel equipment such as electrolytic cells and batteries.
'With stronger clean energy weapons, the United States can be a stronger partner to our Allies, especially as Russia wades into war in Ukraine,' the White House said in a statement.