Your frustration that American renewables aren’t always made domestically is understandable and a concern that’s shared by many, hence the major federal (and, depending on where you live, state) push toward cultivating a home-grown renewables industry. Still, it’s important to keep in mind that Evergreen is moving solar panel assembly to China–not production–and that a manufacturer’s outsourced carbon footprint depends largely on its specific case.

As I’m certain you well know, the global oversupply of solar panels has contributed significantly to their lowered prices. Particularly in the case of smaller companies such as Evergreen, this sort of situation may force them to cut costs in politically unpopular ways but which do save money and appease shareholders, whose wallets are tied to the companies’ bank balances. This way, outsourcing allows the companies to focus their money and attention on their key strengths and business–in Evergreen’s case, the production of solar products that are among the most environmentally-friendly in the industry.

You’re right that avoidable emissions are created by Evergreen’s decision to outsource, but the changed size of its carbon footprint depends on the specific costs associated with the panels’ production and assembly. It’s impossible to know for sure the carbon impact of such a move without doing a detailed carbon inventory, and even then the numbers may not be exact, especially since it’s still a burgeoning field. The lower energy-intensive processes in developing countries like China may result in lower CO2 emissions overall–but the fact that most of China’s factories are still powered by coal may counteract that. I can’t pretend to know what Evergreen’s (or its contractor’s) exact labor costs are. Regardless, because China is a coal-intensive economy, the emissions produced in the transport of Evergreen’s assembled-in-China panels are far less than those that would be produced by a comparably-sized competitor who had outsourced production there.

It’s crucial to keep in mind that Evergreen would likely go out of business quickly if it didn’t adapt its business practices to suit the economic climate, and that moving part of the supply chain overseas is standard industry practice virtually everywhere around the world, including Germany. Evergreen isn’t the only solar manufacturer to look to Asia–German manufacturer Q-Cells and Norwegian producer Renewable Energy Corp. have both already begun to set up plants there, for example. Ideally, Evergreen would keep both production and assembly in the U.S. But the solar industry is currently undergoing a lot of change–both good and bad, though I like to think mostly good–and perhaps it’s too early to write Evergreen off so quickly.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by GetSolar: New blog post: Evergreen Solar Outsources to China http://bit.ly/2TJCwi...