Biden also doubled an import quota on solar cells – the main components of panels that go on rooftops and utility sites – to 5 gigawatts, allowing a greater number of imported cells used by domestic manufacturers.

The US does not currently produce solar cells, and the administration wants to make sure domestic suppliers “do not have to pay a tariff on a key input for their manufacturing process”, a senior administration official said Friday.

The cells come from places like Vietnam or Malaysia – not China, the official said. “There is no reason to think that making the (import quota) larger will somehow help China,” the official said, a claim that some US solar manufacturers disputed. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly.

Biden faced a choice among competing constituencies on solar power, a key part of his climate and clean-energy agenda. Labour unions support import restrictions to protect domestic jobs, while the solar industry relies in large part on cheap panels imported from China and other countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.

Biden says he won’t lift tariffs on Chinese goods, citing phase one trade deal

The American Clean Power Association, a renewable energy group representing both installers and manufacturers, praised the administration’s decision, calling it “a win for jobs and a win for the President’s climate agenda”.

Biden’s decision to extend the tariffs on imported solar cells and panels “gives the domestic solar manufacturing industry four more years to adjust to import competition as intended by the statute”, said Heather Zichal, the group’s CEO. She is a former energy adviser to President Barack Obama.

Biden has set a goal to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and solar power is a key part of that agenda. The administration approved two large-scale solar projects in California in December and backed a third solar farm there last month.

A recent report by the US Energy Department says solar has the potential to supply up to 40 per cent of the nation’s electricity within 15 years – a tenfold increase over current solar output.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents solar installers, said she was disappointed with the tariff extension, but said Biden “arrived at a balanced solution in upholding the exclusion for bifacial panels and increasing the tariff rate quota for (solar) cells”.

Trump approved tariffs on imported solar-energy components in 2018, saying his administration would always defend American workers and businesses from unfair competition. The tariffs were initially set at 30 per cent and later cut to 18 per cent and then 15 per cent. They were set to expire on Sunday without action by Biden.

Under Biden’s decision, tariffs will be set at 14.75 per cent and gradually be reduced to 14 per cent.

Taiwan, tariffs, boycotts: Chinese scholars expect more strife with US in 2022

Since the tariffs were imposed, solar-panel production in the US has tripled. Chinese and South Korean companies have set up factories in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, and an American firm, First Solar Inc, expanded domestic production at a plant in Ohio.

Mark Widmar, chief executive of Arizona-based First Solar, said his company was “deeply disappointed” at Biden’s decision to exclude bifacial panels from tariffs.

The exclusion tilts the playing field to China and other large producers “by providing unlawfully subsidised bifacial panels an instant, artificial advantage over other panel types”, Widmar said.

Since China dominates bifacial panel production, “this decision effectively allows China to outflank American efforts to grow self-reliant solar supply chains”, he said.

A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers also blasted the decision, which they said “undermines American workers and manufacturers at a moment when domestic solar production is poised to dramatically expand”.

Republican Senator Rob Portman, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Democratic Representatives Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan said in a joint statement that China “has a long history of heavily subsidising its solar enterprises and dumping solar panels made with exploited workers into other markets. These kinds of products should not enter the United States duty free”.

Opposing that view was Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen from Nevada, whose state has the most solar jobs per capita in the country.

While she appreciates Biden’s decision to exclude bifacial panels, “the overall decision to extend these harmful tariffs is disappointing and remains the wrong approach”, Rosen said.

Tariffs “harm America’s clean energy economy by unnecessarily hindering domestic solar projects and raising costs, while failing to incentivise domestic manufacturing”, she said, vowing to fight solar tariffs “including through legislation”.