The Inflation Reduction Act in the US has driven a massive shift to domestic manufacturing of solar components from inverters and modules to solar racking and mounting systems. Under the supply chain issues during the pandemic, the costs of reshoring manufacturing is seen to be increasingly more attractive when balanced against the risk of disruption from a global supply chain. Add in the fact that local manufacturing is also an economic multiplier with job creation occurring across multiple professions, and the IRA incentives and it is hardly surprising that there is a boom in reshoring solar manufacturing. Yet, there are several issues and challenges that come alongside reshoring solar racking and mounting manufacturing, including cost, regulatory environment, scaling and capacity, supply chain dependencies as well as competition from the U.S. and globally.
At Polar Racking, we are in a unique position to compare the various manufacturing markets with facilities located overseas, in Canada, and the U.S. Taken this perspective into account, I will cover the challenges and issues to applying the U.S. model of incentives to encourage domestic manufacturing in Canada, while taking into consideration the particularities of the Canadian industry.
