India's Solar Manufacturing To Touch 100 GW By 2026, Says Top Official

India will emerge as a key player in renewable energy equipment supply chain globally and become an exporter as its solar manufacturing capacity alone would touch 100GW by 2026, a top official said. The government is implementing a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme with an outlay of Rs 24,000 crore which is estimated to aid setting up 48 GW of solar equipment manufacturing capacity by 2026.

"We aim to create India as a leading global supplier of renewable energy (equipment)," New & Renewable Energy Secretary Bhupinder Singh Bhalla said at a CII event here.

Mr Bhalla said the solar PLI scheme worth Rs 24,000 crore will create 48GW of new RE manufacturing capacity in next three years.

India has 28GW of solar module manufacturing capacity and 6GW of solar cell manufacturing capacity at present, he said.

After the implementation of the PLI scheme for solar, India should be in a position to have 100GW solar module manufacturing capacity, he pointed out.

"We need to add 30GW to 40GW of solar power capacity every year. We still have a very large substantial capacity for exports. That is why, India will become a key player in the global supply chain (of solar equipment)," he said.

India has an ambitious target of having 500GW of RE capacity by 2030 and aims to have 50 per cent of its electric power capacity from non-fossil fuel based source like solar, wind energy and green hydrogen.

"We aim that India becomes a leading manufacturer of solar modules. India is poised to become a global hub of RE manufacturing," he said.

Mr Bhalla added that India has 15 GW of wind energy (turbine) manufacturing capacity at present.

"We aim to achieve 50 per cent of our electric power from non-fossil fuels by 2030. India has installed renewable energy (RE) generation capacity of 178 GW as of August 2023 and witnessed the fastest RE capacity addition over the past years," he stated.

India has the fourth largest RE capacity in the world, he informed.

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