TerraSmart’s CEO Sheds Light On Trade Case

August 29, 2017

“All Across The Midwest Steel Belt And The Deep South, There Are Factories Churning Out Steel Racking And Other Solar Equipment That’s Meeting The Demand For Solar Power Plants, And Using American Steel To Do It.”
Ryan Reid, CEO

Fort Myers, Florida –  TerraSmart’s president and CEO, Ryan Reid, wrote an article titled, “Why Are Two Bankrupt Solar Companies Seeking a Bailout that Would Kill their Industry?”, that was published as an opinion piece on August 15, 2017 in the WashingtonExaminer.com.  The article is in response to current petition filed with the International Trade Commission (ITC) by Georgia-based Suniva, inc., after it filed for bankruptcy protection.  If the petition gets passed, it could double the price of solar panels and completely stop solar growth in the United States.  In the article Reid presents an original argument and highlights the fact that solar manufacturing in the United States has been the fastest growing manufacturing-sector in the past five years all while using American steel to support.

According to the Solar Foundation job census, solar manufacturing jobs grew twenty-six percent nationwide in 2016. In the Midwest state Nebraska, solar manufacturing job growth was over 6,600 percent while Texas was at 114 percent growth and southern state Alabama was over eighty-nine percent growth in 2016.  Big picture job growth in the solar industry shows that one in fifty solar jobs were added for every new U.S. job in 2016.