India Moves to Curb Imports of Chinese Solar Cells

The Indian government has set a deadline to curb the use of Chinese solar cell imports in its transition to cleaner energy sources.

The country’s renewable energy ministry said on Tuesday that Indian clean energy firms will only be allowed to use locally made solar cells supplied by an approved list of companies in government projects from June 2026.

India already requires the use of locally made photovoltaic (PV) modules in government projects from an approved list of domestic manufacturers, and authorities have now extended this rule to solar cells as well.

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The government plans to increase its non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 from about 156 at present.

Currently, India has a solar PV module-making capacity of about 80 gigawatts, while its cell-making capacity is slightly more than 7 GW, with companies largely relying on Chinese cells to make modules.

The government will issue a list of approved cell manufacturers as the installed capacity of solar PV cells in the country is expected to increase substantially next year, the ministry said on Monday.

Several Indian companies have already set up or are in the process of establishing solar cell-making plants.

Tata Power recently commissioned a 4.3 GW cell making plant in southern India.

And Reliance Industries aims to commission its first phase of a 20 GW integrated solar cell and module production facility before the end of this year in the state of Gujarat, where the Adani Group already has a 4 GW cell and module-making plant.

Companies such as Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar and Solex Energy have also lined up cell manufacturing pipelines.

“There is a possibility that the prices of modules using domestically made cells will be higher than the imported cells and that’s where scaling up the cell capacity and improvement in cost economics for cell manufacturing in India will be important,” Vikram V, vice president of corporate ratings at ICRA, said.