India’s solar industry started to see a new wave of self-reliant developments

India’s solar industry has started to see a new wave of self-reliant developments. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, the Renewable Energy Ministry has received proposals from various players for over 10 GW of fresh solar equipment manufacturing.

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Key-Points

These moves are in line with India’s commitment to attain the target of 175 GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022 including 100 GW of solar installed capacity.

This rise of interest in the domestic manufacture of solar equipment coincides with other measures of the government to promote domestic industry like increasing duties on imports across sectors, including solar power.

There is a proposal of increasing customs duty to around 20-25% on solar equipment and also for a 5% interest subvention scheme for the domestic manufacturing of ingots, wafers and cells.

However, these duty changes should be in compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) standards.

There has been a significant progress in solar capacity addition since 2014, with India progressively emerging as the world’s third largest solar market.

India has implemented safeguard duties on import of solar equipment from China and Malaysia, which have been extended until July 2021 at a rate of around 15%.