Mercom Exclusive: Can Domestic Manufacturers Capture a Larger Piece of the Growing Indian Solar Market?
February 20, 2017
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Solar installations in India reached 4 GW in 2016, and are expected to surpass 9 GW in 2017, an incredible pace of growth considering India installed just 883 MW in 2014. With exponential growth in the sector, the government wants to ramp up domestic manufacturing to decrease the volume of solar module imports which, along with installations, has also increased dramatically. The challenge, like in most markets, has been cost competition from Chinese manufacturers. India also lost the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling last year which decided that its Domestic Content Requirements (DCR) discriminated against U.S. manufacturers. With this backdrop, policy makers are looking at various options to support domestic manufacturers without violating trade agreements.