With Protection and Incentives, Indian Solar Manufacturing could Finally see a Boom

The Indian solar manufacturing sector has struggled ever since its inception a decade ago. With the Chinese solar manufacturing industry decimating other countries’ solar manufacturing capacities across the world, India was no exception in seeing multiple bankruptcies and huge losses. While the government has tried to boost domestic manufacturing, it was only done in a piecemeal fashion with Chinese imports still making up more than 80% of the domestic demand thanks to the cutthroat pricing.

The Indian government has finally managed to now get its act right and has not only looked to protect the industry from imports but also looked to get input incentives for large scale manufacturing to come up in the country. The recently announced PLI scheme will give large incentives for both domestic and foreign manufactures to invest huge amounts into the industry. As per a news report, there are more than 15 manufacturers looking to set up capacities across the supply chain.

What is pushing the industry finally forward is that the government plans to impose a large 40% duty on imports of solar panels to prevent the Chinese from swamping the industry. With the border tiff between Indian and China last year, the government has explicitly started preventing Chinese investments and sales in multiple sectors with Chinese companies not allowed to bid for government contracts. The 40% duty and setting up of large capacities will almost remove the Chinese presence in the country from solar energy. Amongst the large players expected to set up plants in India with these PLI incentives are domestic players such as Adani Group, Waaree Energies, and Vikram Solar as well as Indian solar developers such as Renew Power who have a large captive demand which they can utilize to power sales from their factories. Then there are US solar manufacturers like 1366 and First Solar who may find setting up Indian factories advantageous to tap into the large Indian demand which is only set to keep growing over the next 10-20 years as solar energy has already become the cheapest source of energy generation and which should keep seeing its competitiveness grow.