There is a mismatch between India’s ambitious target to increase its solar power generation capacity to 100 Gigawatt by 2022 and having just a 3 Gw local manufacturing base for solar cells and 9 Gw for panels.
This has fueled the growth in import of cheap solar components worth over Rs 80,000 crore in the past five years, but this can not go on forever.
India will have to develops a domestic base of manufacturing capacity that is able to significantly replace the solar imports, if not eliminate them completely.
Bridge To India puts the country’s total operational installed solar module manufacturing capacity at only around 4 GW and projects this capacity to grow by an additional 4-5 GW in the next 4 years.
Also, the operational manufacturing capacity for solar cells stands at 1 GW and is expected to grow by an additional 2-4 GW in the next 4 years, it says.
PwC on the other hand estimates cell manufacturing capacity of 3 GW and operational module manufacturing capacity at around 9 GW.
Module manufacturing in India has grown at a CAGR of 40 per cent with 4-5 GW additions taking place in the last 2 years alone.
Going by this trend, the module manufacturing capacity of India could possibly reach as high as 20-25 GW by FY 2023.
The government’s well-established growth trajectory has prompted players like Vikram Solar, LONGi Solar and Adani to announce plans on establishing and expanding GW-scale module manufacturing plants over the next few years.
In a major report released earlier this year, global Research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie, had expressed confidence in India’s long-term development progress in the solar sector saying that it expects the country to continue to remain the third-largest solar market globally in 2019.
But, according to the firm, progress is still not sufficient to meet the target.
Reference- Bridge To India, PwC Report, Economic Times