National

What lies ahead for India’s solar sector?

Our Bureau. Chennai | Updated on February 23, 2021

The potential to tap solar energy is huge in India and the Government of India has rightly set a challenging but achievable target of 450 GW of renewable power by 2030 – a bulk of this will be solar energy.

One issue that could come in the way is India’s reliance on imports, especially from China, for solar panels. To avoid this roadblock, the government has come out with a slew of policies to improve India’s self-reliance in this area.

The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Series, presented by Tata Power and BusinessLine and powered by Exim Bank, will delve deep into this issue in a webinar, ‘Attaining Self-Sufficiency in Solar PV Manufacturing’ on February 25 at 5 pm.

 

Topics to be discussed

The discussion will focus on: Can Indian manufacturers compete with China even as the prices of cells and modules are set to fall further even with some protection? After all, there is no integrated manufacturer in India yet. What is the minimum duty protection (BCD) that Indian solar manufacturers would be satisfied with and for how long? If this protection is given, what are the commitments that manufacturers are prepared to make from their side?

Do Indian manufacturers have the R&D depth needed to keep at the cutting edge of technology? Unlike the Chinese and Koreans,

Indian manufacturers have neither invested in R&D sufficiently nor acquired companies abroad for their IP.

Chinese domination

Given the massive domination of Chinese players (poly or mono crystalline solar cells), would it be wise for Indian manufacturers to leave the large, utility-scale solar market to the Chinese and focus only on high-paying, niche segments such as perovskites, BIPV and organic cells?

Experts who will participate in the webinar are: Ashish Khanna, President, Renewables, Tata Power; Harsha Bangari, Deputy Managing Director, India Exim Bank; and Ivan Saha, Chief Technology Officer, ReNew Power.

M Ramesh, Senior Deputy Editor, BusinessLine, will moderate the discussion.

To register for the webinar, visit http://bit.ly/BLSOLAR or scan the QR code

 

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Published on February 23, 2021
renewable energy
solar
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