India’s renewable equipment manufacturing to face headwinds

The market has taken strides to encourage domestic manufacturing of solar equipment.

India will continue to be reliant on China for renewable energy supply even as it restricted imports from the market to encourage domestic manufacturing, Fitch Solutions reported. 

India has implemented policies that levied imported solar cells and modules as well as put in place an Approved List of Models and manufacturers. 

This has so far encouraged companies, such as Adani Solar, Reliance Industries, and ReNew Power to manufacture solar equipment. However, Fitch noted the market will likely remain dependent on China for polysilicon and wafer supply.

Read more: Why markets need to reshore renewable equipment supply

“This is underpinned by the fact that Adani Solar only started construction of the market’s first large-scale 30,000 tonnes polysilicon manufacturing facility in December 2022,” the report read. 

Moreover, China has plans to tighten the export of wafer and polysilicon manufacturing technologies.

“[This] could hinder India's ability to tap into existing manufacturing technologies to set up their own facilities. As a result, India will not be able to completely disassociate its solar power sector growth from China.”