Importance of Solar Wafer Production in India

By Narsi Santhanam • Jun 18th, 2010 • Category: Uncategorized

I got an interesting email today on how the government incentives for solar power through the National Solar Mission might end up benefitting the non Indian companies much more than the Indian companies.

The gist of the email was as follows:

As demand for the solar cells goes up, these have to be procured from within the country or to be imported. Whatever way you procure, the major cost of component to manufacture polycrystalline cell is Wafer which in anyway have to be imported. Thus, a significant chunk of money being invested in these projects will go out of India, since the manufacturing of wafer has
not started substantially.

In order to meet the future demand and to be self independent Govt should immediately look into the possibilities to give sops for manufacture of wafers, through subsidies/long term easy loans etc. This will also bring down the price of wafer or cells or modules in the long run.

Interesting thought. It is worth digging up the precise value added at each stage of the solar PV production value chain to figure out how much value is indeed going to be created outside India, something the EAI team will do soon.

About the Author

Narasimhan (Narsi) has extensive experience in understanding renewable energy markets and strategic levers for success in these markets. His special focus has been his work on the Indian renewable energy industry. His work in the previous 15 years have spanned market and industry research, product management and international sales, and strategic consulting. see more http://www.eai.in/ref/team/ns.html

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