Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From India, Indonesia, and the Lao People's Democratic Republic: Initiation of Countervailing Duty Investigations

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[C-533-943, C-560-847, C-553-004]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From India, Indonesia, and the Lao People's Democratic Republic: Initiation of Countervailing Duty Investigations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable August 6, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Amber Hodak at (202) 482-8034 (India), Ted Pearson at (202) 482-2631 (Indonesia), and Shane Subler at (202) 482-6241 (the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos)), AD/CVD Operations, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Petitions</HD> On July 17, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) received countervailing duty (CVD) petitions concerning imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules (solar cells), from India, Indonesia, and Laos filed in proper form on behalf of the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade (the petitioner). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The CVD Petitions were accompanied by antidumping duty (AD) petitions concerning imports of imports of solar cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioner's Letter, “Petitions for the Imposition of Antidumping and Countervailing Duties,” dated July 17, 2025 (Petitions). The individual members of the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade are First Solar, Inc., Hanwha Q CELLS USA, Inc. (Qcells), and Mission Solar Energy LLC (Mission Solar). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> On July 21 and 22, 2025, Commerce requested supplemental information pertaining to certain aspects of the Petitions in supplemental questionnaires. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On July 23 and 24, 2025, the petitioner filed timely responses to these requests for additional information. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letters, “Supplemental Questions,” dated July 21, 2025 (General Issues Questionnaire), Country-Specific CVD Supplemental Questionnaires: India CVD Supplemental, Indonesia CVD Supplemental, and Laos CVD Supplemental, dated July 22, 2025. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioner's Letters, “Response to the 1st Supplemental Questionnaire Regarding Common Issues and Injury Volume I of the Petition,” dated July 23, 2025 (General Issues Supplement); <E T="03">see also</E> “Country-Specific CVD Supplemental Responses: India CVD Supplement,” “Indonesia CVD Supplement,” and “Laos CVD Supplement,” dated July 24, 2025. </FTNT> In accordance with section 702(b)(1) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), the petitioner alleges that the Government of India (GOI), Government of Indonesia (GOIN), and Government of Laos (GOL) (collectively, Governments) are providing countervailable subsidies, within the meaning of sections 701 and 771(5) of the Act, to producers of solar cells in India, Indonesia, and Laos, and that such imports are materially injuring, or threatening material injury to, the domestic industry producing solar cells in the United States. Consistent with section 702(b)(1) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.202(b), for those alleged programs on which we are initiating CVD investigations, the Petitions were accompanied by information reasonably available to the petitioner supporting its allegations. Commerce finds that the petitioner filed the Petitions on behalf of the domestic industry, because the petitioner is an interested party, as defined in section 771(9)(F) of the Act. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce also finds that the petitioner demonstrated sufficient industry support with respect to the initiation of the requested CVD investigations. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The Alliance is an association, the majority of whose members are producers of the domestic like product. Individual members of the Alliance (QCells and Mission Solar) are interested parties within the meaning of section 771(9)(C) of the Act. <E T="03">See</E> Petitions at Volume I (page 2). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> section on “Determination of Industry Support for the Petitions,” <E T="03">infra.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Periods of Investigation</HD> Because the Petitions were filed on July 17, 2025, the periods of investigation for the India, Indonesia, and Laos CVD investigations are January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.204(b)(2). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigations</HD> The products covered by these investigations are solar cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos. For a full description of the scope of these investigations, <E T="03">see</E> the appendix to this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments on the Scope of the Investigations</HD> On July 21, 2025, Commerce requested information and clarification from the petitioner regarding the proposed scope to ensure that the scope language in the Petitions is an accurate reflection of the products for which the domestic industry is seeking relief. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> On July 23, 2025, the petitioner provided clarifications and revised the scope. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> The description of merchandise covered by these investigations, as described in the appendix to this notice, reflects these clarifications. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> General Issues Questionnaire at 3-4. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> General Issues Supplement at 2-8. </FTNT> As discussed in the <E T="03">Preamble</E> to Commerce's regulations, we are setting aside a period for interested parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope). <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce will consider all comments received from interested parties and, if necessary, will consult with interested parties prior to the issuance of the preliminary determinations. If scope comments include factual information, <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> all such factual information should be limited to public information. Commerce requests that interested parties provide at the beginning of their scope comments a public executive summary for each comment or issue raised in their submission. Commerce further requests that interested parties limit their public executive summary of each comment or issue to no more than 450 words, not including citations. Commerce intends to use the public executive summaries as the basis of the comment summaries included in the analysis of scope comments. To facilitate preparation of its questionnaires, Commerce requests that scope comments be submitted by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on August 26, 2025, which is 20 calendar days from the signature date of this notice. Any rebuttal comments, which may include factual information, and should also be limited to public information, must be filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on September 5, 2025, which is 10 calendar days from the initial comment deadline. <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties; Final Rule,</E> 62 FR 27296, 27323 (May 19, 1997) ( <E T="03">Preamble</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.102(b)(21) (defining “factual information”). </FTNT> Commerce requests that any factual information that parties consider relevant to the scope of these investigations be submitted during that time period. However, if a party subsequently finds that additional factual information pertaining to the scope of the investigations may be relevant, the party must contact Commerce and request permission to submit the additional information. All scope comments must be filed simultaneously on the records of the concurrent AD and CVD investigations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Filing Requirements</HD> All submissions to Commerce must be filed electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS), unless an exception applies. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> An electronically filed document must be received successfully in its entirety by the time and date it is due. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings: Electronic Filing Procedures; Administrative Protective Order Procedures,</E> 76 FR 39263 (July 6, 2011); <E T="03">see also Enforcement and Compliance; Change of Electronic Filing System Name,</E> 79 FR 69046 (November 20, 2014), for details of Commerce's electronic filing requirements, effective August 5, 2011. Information on using ACCESS can be found at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/help.aspx</E> and a handbook can be found at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/help/Handbook_on_Electronic_Filing_Procedures.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Consultations</HD> Pursuant to sections 702(b)(4)(A)(i) and (ii) of the Act, Commerce notified the GOI, GOIN, and GOL of the receipt of the Petitions and provided an opportunity for consultations with respect to the Petitions. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce held consultations with the GOI on July 30, 2025, <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> the GOL on July 31, 2025, and the GOIN on August 1, 2025. <SU>16</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letters, “Invitation for Consultations to Discuss the Countervailing Duty Petition,” dated July 17, 2025. </FTNT> <FT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━