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Most of the equipment orders for the solar PV plants to be built in India are going to foreign manufacturers. The plants of Indian manufacturers, on the other hand, are lying shut or not operating at full capacity for want of orders. Did we really want th

until June this year, according to C. Suryaprasad, CEO and joint managing director.

Shan Solar had just recently commissioned a Rs 800-million module plant, which is capable of producing 30 MW worth of modules. The company had intended to go a step down the value chain by also setting up a cell plant, which calls for a large investment. Its module plant has just gone on stream and bagged some orders from Europe. But even this plant is not operating to its full capacity.

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission ( JNNSM) guidelines stipulate that all grid-connected solar PV projects in India coming under the scheme will have to use cells and modules that are made in India. This presents a huge opportunity for solar PV module manufacturing in India as solar module demand is likely to touch 2000 MW by 2017 and 7500 MW by 2022.

Clearly, this rule was intended to create a domestic manufacturing hub in India—one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Unfortunately, Indian suppliers have failed to benefit from it. Instead, low-cost Chinese rivals like Suntech and Trina Solar and US firms backed by preferential trade finance including First Solar have grabbed most of the equipment orders for the plants to be built in India.

“It’s a disaster in the making,” says K. Subramanya, CEO of Tata BP Solar. “We want solar to succeed but we need fair competition.”

What’s going wrong

There are many factors at play, including the scale of manufacturing,