The Biden administration's recent actions to support U.S. solar energy installations may not be enough to create a domestic supply chain, renewable energy developers warned.

The solar industry quickly welcomed the administration's directives, including a two-year freeze of antidumping duties for solar equipment imported from four Southeast Asian countries and the invocation of the Defense Production Act to prompt new domestic manufacturing.

The two-year freeze on antidumping duties relieved a risk of new tariffs created by a Commerce Department trade probe into whether solar manufacturers used factories in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia to circumvent American tariffs on imports from China. Meanwhile, the use of the Defense Production Act could enable the U.S. government to build up domestic production of solar panels and other energy equipment.

But BayWa r.e. Wind LLC President and CEO Florian Zerhusen emphasized that the U.S. needs more comprehensive policies in place to truly spur domestic manufacturing.

"We're not learning. We have to get through something even worse than the Auxin case" to see a true domestic renewables supply chain, Zerhusen said during a June 8 panel discussion at the American Council on Renewable Energy's Finance Forum in New York City.

A more mature domestic industry will ultimately involve eliminating the uncertainty created by cycles of expiring production tax credits, which distracts power generators from their priority to decarbonize the electric grid, Zerhusen added.

"We need to ... know what our cost is as an industry," the CEO said.

Congress could pass legislation containing various energy tax credit extenders in a smaller bill than President Joe Biden's massive Build Back Better Act proposal, but some industry experts have expressed concern that the effort could be put on the back burner during a busy legislative season.

Read More: A decade into tariffs, US solar manufacturing is still deep in Asia's shadow

Broad Reach Power LLC CEO Steve Vavrik agreed with Zerhusen that direct payments in the form of tax refunds should be enshrined as an alternative to PTCs because "tax equity is a really small market."

The industry might even be better served by shifting tax credits from power plants to grid connection, Vavrik said.

"Maybe now's the time to trade the generation subsidy," he said during the panel. "There are rarely opponents to grid investment," compared to a more substantial opposition to support for power generators.

Cordelio Power CEO John Carson remains skeptical of the need to create a domestic supply chain, citing the "constantly shifting terrain" for developers.

"We've looked at [U.S. manufacturing opportunities] ... but I doubt that we'll do it because I think that this current malaise or period of uncertainty and delay is temporary," the CEO said about the Canadian independent power producer, which in January acquired a 900-MWac pipeline of planned New York and Pennsylvania solar projects.

Given the inflated materials and labor costs exacerbating supply chain issues, Carson said, buyers are willing to work with developers and "reopen the books on signed [power purchase agreements]" to push projects through.

"This isn't guns drawn, this is pencils out," Broad Reach Power's Vavrik agreed. "There are not many projects around, and they don't want to lose a project ... they want the power more than anything else and that's why they'll work constructively with you."

The company in November 2021 announced that its North Fork Battery Storage Project and Bat Cave Energy Storage Project were online and placed into service in the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas Inc. market.

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