The Coronavirus pandemic is “taking a toll” on the US solar industry and the sector must be considered in any legislation in Congress aimed at supporting the national economy during the crisis, Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said Friday.

“We are getting reports from our members about supply chain disruptions, project delays, sales challenges and more. It is clear that companies will feel the effects of these market disruptions,” she wrote in an “open letter” to the Washington, DC-based trade group’s 1,000 member companies.

“Among other problems, if this continues, it is possible that companies could be unable to meet project delivery deadlines, which would change the tax treatment or eligibility for state incentives for those projects,” she added.

PV projects are eligible for the time-sensitive federal investment tax credit (ITC) at either 30% or 26% value, depending on their eligibility, if they enter commercial operation by the end of this year. The ITC is a one-time, up-front credit for capital expenditures and is applicable for both commercial and residential projects.

It has begun to step down and will decline to 22% value for operational systems in 2021 and then to a permanent 10% in 2022 for those commercial scale only. In contrast, lawmakers extended the wind production tax credit (PTC) for this year at 60% value.

“There is still much we don’t know. While we have a great deal of anecdotal indications of the impact of this virus on our industry, it will take more time to full evaluate the effects of this crisis on solar companies,” she noted.

Analyst group BloomberNEF earlier said the virus would hit the global solar industry hard in 2020, reducing its solar demand forecast from 121-152GW to 108-143GW, which it said could represent the first dip in annual solar capacity additions since the 1980s.

In the US, solar power has growth to provide about 2.7% of US electricity, as compared to 0.1% in 2010. The sector employs about 242,000 people.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, declared a “national emergency” Friday afternoon, freeing up billions of dollars in federal aid to confront the virus, which has more than 1,600 confirmed cases in the US.

Congress was nearing a deal with the White House on the first of what is expected to be a series of relief measures to address the economic impacts of coronavirus. It earlier passed an $8.3bn measure to assist US government efforts to develop a vaccine and fund state efforts to enhance their capacity to test for the fast-moving virus.

Administration officials are assessing what sectors of the economy could be most impacted by fallout from the outbreak. The extent that renewables may obtain financial aid or tax considerations will be influenced by Congress where the sector has majority support, given Trump's well-known antipathy toward onshore wind and solar, to a lesser extent.

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Coronavirus 'taking toll' on industry: US solar body chief