Solar manufacturing growing on Indian soil

The Union Ministry has approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme on highly efficient Solar PV modules for achieving manufacturing capacity on a Giga Watt (GW) scale. The government has approved the grant worth Rs 19,500 crore for domestic manufacturing.

This announcement of the PLI scheme is a boon to the solar manufacturing industry in India to form Giga factories with a clear focus on manufacturing High-Efficiency Solar PV Modules. India is a nation that has resolved not to compromise on its energy security, keeping in view the high strain on the overall global food & energy value chain due to climate change and very recent geo-political tension in Europe/USA & Russia/China. Up scaling the domestic capacity is quintessential for a resilient and self-sufficient INDIA. In alignment with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision, it has been our priority and commitment to contribute towards building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat as far as India’s solar modules/cell manufacturing is concerned.

The All India solar industry association (AISIA) is committed to adding more & more solar manufacturing capacities on Indian soil to make our country an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The policies of Govt. of India on imposing 40% BCD on imported modules /cells, PLI schemes, ALMM, and SPECS have laid a strong foundation for domestic manufacturers to scale up capacity addition. The actual installed capacity as on September 2022 stands at 30000 MWs (Almost 10,000 MWs capacity to be approved under ALMM)

In the next six months, another 10000 MWs of solar domestic modules manufacturing capacity would be in place, taking overall capacity to approx. 40000 MWs by 31st March 2023. As per the available information and conducive government policies, there will be an addition of another 74,000 MWs by PLI trench 1 and 1, which will take the total capacity to approximately 114000 MWs. The new PLI announced today will give a boost to higher capacity addition on the upstream side of the value chain i.e., Poly silica ingots wafers, etc. This shall bring much-needed technology innovation into the realm of our very own energy value chain.

Overall, this will march our nation towards achieving the target of becoming a desired global manufacturing hub for high-efficiency solar panels.

Domestic solar manufacturers are operating in an environment where indigenous module production is rapidly increasing without much demand. This brings good competition in prices and services to give better ROI to end customers. Higher Manufacturing capacity over demand will look like to continue in coming years.