Wednesday, 5 August 2026

The FCC placed foreign-produced inverters on its Covered List last week, according to CleanTechnica. New inverter models can no longer be imported into the United States, effective immediately.

The restriction carries no exemption by supplier country. As CleanTechnica reported, it applies "regardless of the nationality of origin" to all foreign countries, including those considered allies.

Inverters convert direct current from solar panels and batteries into alternating current for grid use, making them a required component in nearly every photovoltaic and storage installation. The Covered List designation blocks the entry of new models rather than targeting a single vendor or jurisdiction.

CleanTechnica set out the case in an item headlined on the cost of the measure to the United States.

The Sierra Club has filed a grassroots comment letter signed by more than 2,000 members and supporters opposing the proposal to rescind the SEC's 2024 climate disclosure rule, according to CleanTechnica.

CleanTechnica reported that the group submitted and joined multiple filings against the rollback of that rule. The signature count of more than 2,000 members and supporters was the figure cited for the grassroots letter.

China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) told photovoltaic manufacturers to stop competing below cost and to compete on product quality instead, without setting a formal price floor, according to pv magazine.

The message came at a solar industry price-compliance meeting held on July 31 in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, pv magazine reported. The regulator convened the session as part of the central government's campaign against what it calls "involution-style" competition.

SAMR's call stopped short of a mandated minimum price, pv magazine reported, keeping the intervention at the level of guidance on pricing conduct rather than administered tariffs.

Markets moved on the announcement. The most-traded polysilicon futures contract on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange hit its daily limit on August 3, closing 8.99% higher at CNY 35,890 per ton, according to pv magazine.

Equities followed. Shares in Tongwei and Flat Glass closed at their daily limits in Shanghai after the regulatory announcement, pv magazine reported.

Supply-side behaviour shifted first. Several polysilicon producers reportedly suspended quotations over the weekend following the meeting and temporarily pulled lower-priced material from the market, according to pv magazine.

The compliance push has a technical anchor. A voluntary group standard setting out a common cost-accounting framework for polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules was released on July 27 under the guidance of SAMR and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), pv magazine reported.

That document, the General Rules for the Cost Accounting Model of the Photovoltaic Industry, gives regulators and companies a shared basis for judging what sits below cost. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) was tasked with promoting the standard and steering companies away from low-price dumping and other potential price violations, according to pv magazine.

The combination matters for how the guidance bites: without a price floor, enforcement rests on whether a quotation can be shown to fall under a cost benchmark defined by the new accounting rules. The immediate reaction in polysilicon futures and in Tongwei and Flat Glass shares points to a market reading the compliance meeting as a constraint on the lowest-priced supply.

Annual talks at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) ran three weeks and closed on Friday with no immediate breakthroughs, according to Climate Home News.

The US is not an ISA member country, and it advanced its unilateral deep-sea mining push during the session, Climate Home News reported.

At issue is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration wants to mine it, as does Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC), one of the mining frontrunners, according to Climate Home News.

The ISA assembly chose consultations led by Malta and pushed a decision on requesting an ITLOS advisory opinion to next year's meeting, Climate Home News reported.

TMC sued the ISA at ITLOS, arguing the body acted in bad faith over an inquiry into the contractor. The court rejected that argument, according to Climate Home News.

In closing remarks, ISA secretary-general Letícia Carvalho described the past year as having "presented both significant challenges and noteworthy achievements".

A federal appeals court in the United States has found that the Environmental Protection Agency acted improperly when it terminated green bank financing worth billions of dollars, according to Canary Media.

The money at issue was cut off last year, Canary Media reported, in a move the court has now held was not properly executed.

Canary Media said the decision sets up a potential showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court. The dispute concerns one of the Trump administration's earliest moves against a Biden-era climate program, according to the same report.

Colombia's incoming far-right president Abelardo de la Espriella has pledged to increase coal exports and start fracking for methane gas, undoing the ban on all new hydrocarbon exploration that the government of Gustavo Petro has enforced since 2022, according to Climate Home News.

The reversal cuts against the diplomatic initiative Colombia launched only months ago. Climate Home News reported that Colombia hosted 57 governments in Santa Marta in April for the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, a voluntary gathering held outside the official UN climate negotiations.

Fabio Arjona, who is to become environment minister, described that conference as an "absolute waste of time and money," per Climate Home News. Arjona will replace Irene Vélez Torres, a co-chair of the Santa Marta coalition.

Leadership of the coalition is already changing hands. Ireland and Tuvalu will formally take over as co-chairs after COP31, and they are set to host the second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Tuvalu next year, Climate Home News reported.

The grouping therefore loses its founding host government's political backing while retaining its calendar. Colombia convened the first meeting and supplied one of its two co-chairs; the incoming administration dismisses the exercise and intends to expand the two fossil fuel activities the coalition exists to phase down, coal and gas.

Sudan has removed customs duties on solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, according to pv magazine. The Sudanese Customs Forces, a government office affiliated with the country's Ministry of Interior, confirmed the exemption through its social media pages, pv magazine reported.

The tariff change came after a fire damaged the Merowe Dam hydroelectric plant, which pv magazine describes as Sudan's largest hydroelectric power station at 1.25 GW.

The fire broke out over last weekend and caused significant damage to power transmission lines, per pv magazine. Outages hit four states: Khartoum, Northern, River Nile and Red Sea.

With the country's single biggest generating asset impaired and transmission lines damaged, imported solar equipment now enters duty-free, lowering the landed cost of distributed generation for households and businesses in the affected states.

A prospective agreement would pair a ceasefire with a 60-day period during which Oman and Iran govern the Strait of Hormuz, according to Semafor.

The 60-day arrangement is the operative term of the deal as described by Semafor, tying the shipping chokepoint's administration to the ceasefire itself rather than to a permanent settlement.

Iranian negotiators are treating the waterway as a red line and as their best leverage over Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported. That framing places control of the strait at the center of the talks rather than at their margins.

Canada is putting nearly CAD 5 million into transmission and road infrastructure serving First Phosphate's Begin-Lamarche phosphate mine in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, according to Natural Resources Canada. The money flows through the First and Last Mile Fund, and the announcement was made by Claude Guay, Parliamentary Secretary to Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

The federal contribution splits across two separate projects. Natural Resources Canada said it is providing CAD 3,071,587 for an electrical transmission line to serve the deposit and CAD 1,771,350 for road infrastructure at the same site.

First Phosphate is matching the federal money on both projects, which Natural Resources Canada said brings in close to CAD 5 million in additional private investment.

On employment, the department said the two infrastructure projects are expected to create approximately 500 jobs during construction. The mine itself is expected to support approximately 300 jobs once production begins in 2029, according to Natural Resources Canada.

The First and Last Mile Fund draws on CAD 1.5 billion in federal funding announced in Budget 2025. It targets the connective infrastructure, the power lines and access roads, that determines whether a mineral deposit can reach a customer at all.

This is not the first federal cheque written for Begin-Lamarche. Natural Resources Canada said the new funding builds on a CAD 16.7-million investment through its Global Partnerships Initiative for First Phosphate's Begin-Lamarche demonstration and feasibility project, which is aimed at producing LFP-CAM quality phosphorous in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and was announced in March 2026.

The commodity in question sits directly in the battery supply chain. Quebec accounts for nearly one-fifth of Canada's mineral production and holds significant deposits of critical and strategic minerals including phosphate, which is used in lithium iron phosphate batteries, according to Natural Resources Canada.