Indian BIS Quality Requirement For Solar Panels Could Halt Surging Chinese Imports

Indian BIS Quality Requirement For Solar Panels

Using certification and testing norms has been one of the best ways to discourage imports and promote domestic manufacturing. This also does not fall foul of WTO rules and regulations which make it very difficult to impose duties or give preference to homegrown companies. India has faced the wrong end of WTO rules when its nascent program to give DCR benefits to Indian solar manufacturing companies was nullified by a WTO ruling. This meant that even the 10-15% reservation of India’s massive demand could not be kept for Indian players.

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Due to massive scale and cost advantages, China has captured almost 90% of the Indian market and Indian companies have no way to play at the same level. Now the Indian government is using the tried and tested Japanese and Chinese way of restricting imports into India.

This new rule should also help in lowering the bad quality of solar products which are extensively present in the Indian market. Indian developers have frequently used low-quality products to cut corners and lower the cost of the projects. Though this bites back in the long term, the cost has been the major factor for Indian developers till now. Hopefully, this new rule and BIS compliance will reduce the prevalence of bad quality solar panels in the Indian market.

The ‘Solar Photovoltaics, Systems, Devices and Components Goods (Requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2017’ will come after a year which will be a very effective way of stopping surging Chinese panel imports. All solar panel sellers in India will have to apply to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to obtain registration and only then can they sell the goods in India.

This new rule will be applicable to solar panels, inverters and storage batteries. Samples shall be taken every two years by government inspectors for these products. As per MNRE, batteries must comply with Indian Standard Number IS 16270: Secondary Cells And Batteries For Solar Photovoltaic Application – General Requirements And Methods Of Test published by the Bureau of Indian Standards in 2014.