India’s solar manufacturing story has become one of the country’s biggest industrial success stories. In just a few years, the country has transformed from being heavily dependent on imported modules to building one of the world’s largest domestic manufacturing bases. Policy initiatives such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme, Basic Customs Duty (BCD), the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM), and most recently the Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) for solar cells have fundamentally reshaped the industry’s trajectory.
The government’s objective is clear and strategically important.
India wants to move beyond assembling imported components and build a fully integrated photovoltaic manufacturing ecosystem that strengthens energy security, creates employment, attracts investment, and reduces long-term dependence on imports.
The progress has been remarkable.
India’s ALMM-listed module manufacturing capacity has grown to nearly 190 GW, while domestic solar cell manufacturing capacity has reached around 30 GW. Few countries have expanded manufacturing capacity at this pace.
Yet this success raises an important question.
Has policy ambition begun to outpace ecosystem readiness?
The introduction of mandatory domestic solar cells for government-supported projects represents the next logical step in India’s localisation journey. However, the domestic manufacturing ecosystem is still evolving. Industry estimates suggest annual demand for solar cells could exceed 50 GW, while effective domestic production remains significantly lower, particularly for advanced technologies such as TOPCon.
The result is not a policy failure, but a classic transition challenge.
Manufacturers are competing for a limited domestic supply of compliant solar cells. Procurement costs have increased, delivery timelines have lengthened, and project planning has become more complex. Developers executing government-backed projects are also facing higher module prices, potentially affecting project economics and commissioning schedules.
But the real bottleneck lies even further upstream. While India has rapidly expanded module manufacturing, much of the equipment and intermediate materials required to manufacture solar cells continue to be imported.
Critical production equipment, including diffusion furnaces, PECVD systems, laser processing equipment, screen-printing machines, and automated production lines, are still largely sourced from China. Essential raw materials such as silicon wafers, polysilicon, silver paste, specialty chemicals, and high-purity consumables also remain heavily import dependent.
This dependence creates a different type of risk.
Indian manufacturers are increasingly experiencing longer procurement timelines for manufacturing equipment due to strong domestic demand within China, selective export controls on certain technologies, geopolitical uncertainties, and evolving global supply chains. For companies investing hundreds, or even thousands, of crores in new manufacturing facilities, such delays can postpone commissioning, increase financing costs, and extend project payback periods.
The challenge becomes even more significant as India looks beyond solar cells towards domestic wafer and ingot manufacturing.
Recent policy discussions indicate that localisation requirements may eventually extend further upstream. While this represents the natural evolution of India’s manufacturing strategy, wafer and ingot production remain among the most technologically sophisticated and capital-intensive segments of the global photovoltaic value chain.
Today, China continues to dominate global production of polysilicon, ingots, and wafers, while India still imports the overwhelming majority of its wafers. This highlights one of the biggest structural gaps in India’s ambition to build a fully integrated manufacturing ecosystem.
This raises another important question. Can localisation mandates alone create manufacturing self-reliance? Probably not. True manufacturing competitiveness requires much more than policy mandates. It depends on technology development, manufacturing equipment, raw material ecosystems, skilled talent, research and development, financing, and world-class infrastructure evolving together.
Policy stability is equally important. Solar manufacturing investments involve long gestation periods and capital commitments running into several thousand crores. Investors therefore require not only ambitious industrial policies but also predictable implementation timelines that provide confidence for long-term investment decisions.
To its credit, India has demonstrated strong policy intent. The combined impact of PLI, BCD, ALMM, and DCR has already transformed the country’s manufacturing landscape and encouraged investments across modules, cells, and integrated manufacturing facilities.
The next phase of India’s solar manufacturing journey, however, should focus on strengthening the ecosystem that supports these policies.
Developing indigenous manufacturing equipment, expanding domestic production of specialty chemicals and consumables, accelerating wafer and polysilicon manufacturing, strengthening research and development, facilitating international technology partnerships, improving access to long-term financing, and developing integrated manufacturing clusters will all be equally important.
India’s ambition should not simply be to replace imported modules with domestically assembled products. It should be to build a globally competitive photovoltaic manufacturing ecosystem spanning the entire value chain, from polysilicon and wafers to cells, modules, advanced materials, and manufacturing equipment. The Domestic Content Requirement is an important milestone in that journey. But its long-term success will ultimately depend not just on localisation mandates, but on whether the entire manufacturing ecosystem evolves at the same pace. If India can achieve that balance, it will do far more than reduce import dependence. It will establish itself as one of the world’s most resilient and competitive solar manufacturing hubs.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
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