- Affected by the marginal changes in U.S. government policies restricting subsidies for clean energy, Sunrun (RUN:US), the largest residential solar installer in the U.S., has removed some solar component manufacturers with Chinese capital backgrounds from its procurement whitelist, shifting towards unaffected suppliers. Sunrun's stock price recorded a 7.56% increase during the day.
- The absence of detailed policy implementation is prompting compliance avoidance operations by financial institutions. Major investment banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs have successively reduced the scale of tax equity financing for related solar projects, and insurance companies have also suspended underwriting for potentially restricted enterprises.
- The expectation of supply chain restructuring has led to valuation differentiation in the secondary market. Against the backdrop of avoiding China-linked supply chains, Canadian Solar (CSIQ:US) rose by 4.74%, JA Solar Technology (002459:SZ) slightly increased by 0.74%, while JinkoSolar (JKS:US), facing uncertainty in compliance recognition for its U.S. factories, retreated by 1.56%.
Marginal Policy Changes and Compliance Game
The pricing logic of the current U.S. photovoltaic market is being reshaped by the compliance requirements of "A Great and Beautiful Act." Under the framework of the act, the shareholding ratio of Chinese enterprises in U.S. solar factories applying for federal subsidies is strictly limited to below 25%, and their actual control is deprived. Before specific regulatory guidance documents are issued, there is significant disagreement in the market over the compliance definition of "financial ties," "profit sharing," and "intellectual property agreements." According to Wood Mackenzie, Chinese companies account for about 80% of global solar equipment manufacturing. If the compliance path remains ambiguous, the commercial operation of at least six newly built U.S. solar panel factories will face substantial obstacles.
Institutional Capital Flows and Financing Blockages
The rise in compliance risks has directly cut off the underlying liquidity of some green energy capacities. Due to concerns that the U.S. Treasury may impose retrospective penalties, leading to the invalidation of tax credits, large investment banks and insurance brokerage firms like Marsh have currently suspended financial support for related projects. This tightening of funds forces downstream installers, represented by Sunrun (RUN:US), to reconstruct their supply chain networks. In Sunrun's latest approved supplier list, only companies like Qcells, REC, and Silfab are retained. This defensive procurement strategy is driving up the short-term premium of domestic compliant capacities.
Supply-Demand Gap and Pricing Revaluation Expectations
The withdrawal of capital and orders poses a direct challenge to the expansion of total power generation capacity in the U.S. Since 2022, solar equipment manufacturers have announced nearly $43 billion in domestic investments, expected to create 48,000 jobs. However, of the approximately 66 gigawatts of solar component capacity currently in production in the U.S., as much as 25 gigawatts come from manufacturers with Chinese capital backgrounds. If this portion, accounting for over one-third of the U.S. capacity, exits the market due to financing disruptions, the U.S. domestic photovoltaic supply chain will face a severe structural shortage amid the surging power demand from AI data centers. If the supply-demand gap cannot be effectively filled through imports, the upward pressure on the national electricity price center may further solidify.
