While the 2GW landmark appears to be significant, it pales in comparison to the production capacity in China. According to IHS, the world’s top PV supplier in 2012, Yingli of China, alone shipped 2300 MW of PV modules.
According to the MNRE, India had a solar cell manufacturing capacity of 848 MW and Ingot & Wafer manufacturing capacity of 15 MW at the end of 2012. There is no Polysilicon production capacity. While companies like Lanco had plans for an integrated PV manufacturing facility, the plan appears to have been shelved, given the market turmoil. The same appears to be the case of Yash Birla group. The only company that seems to be seriously exploring the option of setting up a Polysilicon plant is the public sector company, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL). From the numbers above, it is obvious that India seriously lacks a strong PV manufacturing ecosystem. The Indian manufacturing sector is plagued by 3 major challenges:
- Most of the manufacturers lack scale. Very few of them have manufacturing capacity of more than 200 MW. In short, the sector is extremely fragmented.
- None of the companies are vertically integrated. PV Manufacturing is mostly concentrated at the downstream of Module assembly. Some of the module manufacturers also make cells. But there is hardly any upstream presence.
- The amount of development of technology is relatively low.
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