Both central and state governments have invested in this solar-development project in two phases worth over Rs. 80 crores, with the state allotting 12 hectares of area for the project.
Modhera village, 25km from Mehsana district has become the first Indian village to be a net renewable energy generator. The village has a total geographical area of 2436 hectares and is located on the banks of the Pushpavati river. It has a grounded solar power plant and over 1300 rooftop solar systems with a 1KW capacity installed on houses to generate electricity. All of these solar systems are linked to battery energy storage systems (BESS), the country’s first grid-connected megawatt-hour scale battery energy storage system.
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Both central and state governments have invested in this solar-development project in two phases worth over Rs. 80 crores, with the state allotting 12 hectares of area for the project. Besides demonstrating how renewable energy can empower people at the grassroots level, villagers can now save up to 60-100% on their electricity bills and even start selling it and earn from energy produced by the solar panel by selling it to the government grid.
The growth in the Indian installation market has not been able to translate into massive growth of local manufacturing capacity. India installed 14 GW of new PV in 2021 and the utility-scale developers are pushing to import modules and build an inventory for more recent installations. With 40% duty for module imports and 25% for cells, PV module distributors have to build inventories in order to provide adequate supply in the market.
Indian government has enacted different duties and programs, however, early attempts from Chinese suppliers to establish manufacturing in India did not materialize. The diagram given above shows some of the Indian manufacturers and their capacities. Estimates reveal only 35% of the modules installed in 2021 were procured locally and India imported 13 GW from mainland China. In its try to become self-independent, India is also an exporting nation as it ships modules to United States and Europe. Using the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, it had set aside $603 million to incentivize local solar PV production.
India doesn’t have enough module and PV cell manufacturing capacity as the current solar module manufacturing capacity is 15GW annually, with only 3.5GW of domestic production. Another raw material, silicone wafer is used in solar panels is the most expensive raw material and is not manufactured in India. Currently, India imports 100% silicon wafers and 80% solar cells. Other key raw materials like silver and aluminum metal pastes are completely imported.
India is making significant progress in solar energy, but for it to become a manufacturing hub, there is a long way. It requires policy interventions like developing home-grown technologies.