Indian renewable energy developer SAEL Industries broke ground on June 27 on a 10 gigawatt integrated solar photovoltaic manufacturing complex in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh — a ₹8,200 crore ($870 million) investment that directly targets the most acute structural weakness in India’s solar supply chain: a critical shortage of domestically manufactured solar cells.
The facility, which will house 5 GW of solar cell capacity alongside 5 GW of module capacity on 200 acres in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority zone at Gautam Buddha Nagar, arrives at a defining moment for India’s energy independence push. A new domestic content requirement — India’s Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) List-II, which took effect June 1 — now mandates that all government-backed, net-metered, and open-access solar projects source their cells from approved domestic manufacturers. India had roughly 31 GW of approved domestic cell capacity against 193 GW of approved module capacity at the time the policy took effect — and only about 10 GW of that cell capacity covers TOPCon technology, which accounts for nearly 89 percent of India’s approved module output. Every GW of domestic cell manufacturing built now is worth more, and commands more demand, than it would have a month ago.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath presided over the foundation stone-laying ceremony alongside Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna and other senior state officials. Adityanath said solar technology India has long imported from China and other suppliers “will now be developed in Jewar,” describing the YEIDA corridor as India’s future solar manufacturing hub. Uttar Pradesh has separately set a target of adding 20 GW of renewable energy capacity over the next two to three years.
The Jewar facility is designed to produce TOPCon — Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact — cells and modules, the cell architecture that surpassed older PERC technology as the industry’s production standard in 2024. TOPCon’s efficiency advantage is rooted in its physical structure. A conventional PERC cell deposits a dielectric passivation layer on the rear of a P-type silicon wafer to reduce recombination losses; TOPCon goes further by building a 1 to 2 nanometer silicon dioxide tunnel oxide layer — deposited via plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition — on the rear of an N-type silicon wafer, combined with a doped polycrystalline silicon layer. The result: majority charge carriers (electrons) can quantum-tunnel through the ultra-thin oxide while minority carriers (holes) are blocked, dramatically reducing surface recombination losses and raising conversion efficiency to 24–25 percent, compared to roughly 22 percent for standard PERC modules. TOPCon cells also degrade at approximately 0.4 percent per year, a slower rate than PERC, making them less expensive on a levelized cost-per-kilowatt-hour basis over a 25-year panel lifetime even when the upfront cell price is higher.
Building that cell chemistry domestically is far more capital-intensive than assembling modules. Establishing 1 GW of solar cell manufacturing capacity requires investment of approximately ₹250 crore to ₹400 crore — five to eight times the ₹50 crore to ₹80 crore required for 1 GW of module assembly — and cell lines carry a gestation period of 18 to 24 months before reaching stable production yields. That cost differential explains why India built out 193 GW of approved module capacity while domestic cell capacity lagged far behind at 31 GW: module assembly is fast, cheap, and logistically simple; cell manufacturing is slow, expensive, and technically demanding. The ALMM List-II policy created mandatory demand for the harder product precisely because the easier product had already scaled.
Read more: India Solar Cell Mandate Takes Effect: Pahal Solar Builds Compliance Edge Into 4.4 GW Expansion
India’s solar deployment ambitions — 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 — have long exceeded its manufacturing base. In the fiscal year ending March 2026, India imported photovoltaic cells valued at $3.06 billion, a jump of 86 percent over the prior year, driven by a record 51 GW of solar installations. China controls roughly 80 percent of global solar cell production and more than 90 percent of the world’s wafer and polysilicon capacity, making India’s dependence on the same supply chain it is trying to replace both a strategic risk and a commercial pressure point. India imports nearly 98 percent of its wafers and all of its polysilicon from China.
India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme for solar PV, launched in 2021 with a total outlay of ₹24,000 crore across two tranches, was designed precisely to fund this transition. A December 2025 evaluation by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and JMK Research found that while the scheme had expanded module capacity to 120 GW and cell capacity to 29.3 GW by mid-2025 — a 216 percent increase in modules and 344 percent in cells since 2022 — it remained well short of its full targets, with only 56 percent of the target module capacity and 14 percent of the target polysilicon capacity commissioned. India’s reliance on imported manufacturing equipment, with over 90 percent of key upstream tools sourced from overseas, adds a further vulnerability.
SAEL’s Jewar facility is part of the PLI-induced investment wave. The company announced the project in July 2025; the June 27 groundbreaking ceremony — with the state’s chief minister in attendance — signals that the capital, the land, and the political backing are now in place.
SAEL Industries is building this facility through its wholly owned subsidiary SAEL Solar P6 Pvt Ltd. The company commissioned 600 MW of solar generation capacity in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh in May 2026, meaning it operates on both sides of the solar industry: as a developer and operator of generation capacity, and now as a manufacturer of the cells and modules that power it. That vertical integration gives SAEL direct visibility into what the domestic market needs — and the ability to absorb its own cell output under ALMM List-II compliance requirements.
Once operational, the Jewar plant will lift SAEL’s total manufacturing capacity to 8.5 GW. The project is projected to generate approximately 5,000 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs, with ripple effects expected across logistics, component suppliers, and allied industries in the YEIDA corridor — a zone already undergoing rapid industrial development around the under-construction Noida International Airport.
SAEL is not building alone. Uttar Pradesh’s YEIDA zone has drawn multiple solar manufacturers; IB Solar announced a 4 GW TOPCon cell and module facility in the same Sector 8 zone in January 2026. Reliance Industries is commissioning a 20 GW integrated solar giga-factory covering the full supply chain from polysilicon to modules. India’s module capacity has doubled in a single year — from 38 GW in March 2024 to 74 GW in March 2025 — and cell capacity tripled over the same period.
The global competitive context matters too. A solar price war driven by Chinese overcapacity has pushed module prices to historic lows, making it harder for non-Chinese manufacturers to compete on cost alone. Western governments — the United States, the European Union, South Korea — are all subsidizing domestic manufacturing to build an alternative to Chinese supply, and India’s combination of scale ambitions, favorable demographics, and PLI-backed investment is among the strongest challengers to Chinese dominance in the field.
For the global solar market, a 10 GW integrated facility capable of producing TOPCon cells at scale in India matters beyond national industrial policy. It adds another manufacturer capable of producing advanced cell chemistry in bulk, introduces competition into a market long dominated by Chinese producers, and validates the engineering and capital case for building the harder parts of the supply chain — cells — not just the easier ones.
Sukhbir Singh, Co-founder and Director of SAEL Industries, described the Jewar investment as “India’s investment in its own energy self-reliance.” Laxit Awla, CEO and Executive Director, said the project “reflects SAEL’s confidence in India’s renewable energy future.”
What is TOPCon technology and why does it matter for India’s solar goals?
TOPCon, or Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact, is an N-type silicon solar cell architecture that deposits an ultra-thin (1–2 nm) silicon dioxide layer on the cell’s rear surface using chemical vapor deposition. That layer allows charge carriers to quantum-tunnel through it while blocking energy losses from surface recombination, pushing module efficiency to 24–25 percent — compared to roughly 22 percent for the older PERC standard. For India, it matters because TOPCon has become the dominant global cell technology and now accounts for nearly 89 percent of India’s approved module output, yet the country has only about 10 GW of approved domestic TOPCon cell capacity against 172 GW of approved module capacity. Building TOPCon cells in India is the specific gap that new domestic content rules require the industry to close.
Why are solar cells so much harder to manufacture domestically than solar modules?
Solar cell manufacturing requires five to eight times as much capital per gigawatt as module assembly — roughly ₹250–400 crore per GW for cells versus ₹50–80 crore per GW for modules — and cell production lines take 18 to 24 months to reach stable yields after commissioning. Module assembly, by contrast, is a lamination and framing process that scales quickly and cheaply. India built out more than 193 GW of approved module capacity while domestic cell capacity lagged at 31 GW because the economics of each were so different. India’s ALMM List-II rule, which took effect June 1, 2026, now requires government-backed solar projects to source cells from approved domestic manufacturers — creating mandatory demand for the harder product precisely because the easier one had been allowed to scale without it.
What is India’s ALMM and how does it connect to the SAEL investment?
India’s Approved List of Models and Manufacturers is a government certification framework for solar equipment. List-I, which covers modules, has been in effect for years; List-II, which covers cells, took effect June 1, 2026 for all government-backed, net-metered, and open-access solar projects. The policy was designed to force domestic cell manufacturing to catch up with module assembly capacity. For SAEL, which will produce cells for the domestic market out of its Jewar facility, it creates an immediate structural demand advantage: any module manufacturer without approved domestic cell capacity — roughly 138 standalone assemblers as of June 2026 — must now source from approved domestic suppliers or face compliance risk on their largest projects.
How does India’s solar push compare to other countries trying to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains?
The United States, the European Union, South Korea, and several other countries are pursuing similar strategies — using industrial policy, tariffs, and domestic content requirements to build solar manufacturing capacity outside China. China controls roughly 80 percent of global cell production and more than 90 percent of global wafer and polysilicon capacity, making supply chain diversification a shared strategic objective across major economies. India’s combination of large domestic demand (a 500 GW non-fossil capacity target by 2030), PLI incentives, and a growing manufacturing base makes it one of the strongest non-Chinese candidates for supply chain relevance — though upstream dependencies on imported polysilicon, wafers, and manufacturing equipment remain the critical unresolved gap.
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