The Indian government’s target is to boost installed solar power capacity more than five-fold to 100 gigawatt (GW) by 2022. The problem, though, is India meets about 85 percent of its solar cell demand through imports from China, and photovoltaic modules account for over half the costs of a solar project. Now, the Indian government is left contemplating whether the domestic industry of solar cells and modules manufacturers should be “protected” from cheap imports. In that vein, the government is actively thinking of imposing an anti-dumping duty. In a related development over last week, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has come out with a “concept note” for offering “direct financial support” of approximately U.S. $1.7 billion (Rs 11,000 crore), as well as a tech upgrade fund for solar manufacture. At the same time, it has said cell and module manufacturing capacity in the country is “obsolete.” The […]