Govt targets solar, hydrogen components to cut import dependence

New Delhi: The renewable energy ministry has identified several products across solar modules, green hydrogen and the wind energy value chain, including solar inverters and electrodes and catalysts, for local manufacturing as part of the broader local manufacturing plan by the government to reduce dependence on disruption-prone imports.

"This is an identification exercise for identifying priority items. Action plans will be worked out subsequently," a senior government official told ET.

The Centre had constituted six sector-specific working groups to identify 100 products for promoting domestic manufacturing and reducing import dependence, with energy being one of them.

Among the products that New Delhi would want locally produced include bipolar plates, Nafion and Zirfon membranes, polysilicon and ingot wafers.

The government already has policies for supporting domestic manufacturing of solar modules, cells, and upcoming rules for ingot-wafer that will be applicable in FY28, in the form of mandatory sourcing from an approved list of models and manufacturers.

The identification of the components is based on significant import value, reliance on land border countries, important for supply chain integrity, with long-term cost competitiveness, domestic demand, feasibility, among others.

Polysilicon, one of the components for making solar modules, is fully imported with no commercial-scale plant in India. Trichlorosilane and high-purity quartz precursors are also not available locally.

Import Dependence

For ingot-wafer, the entire upstream component is imported, which creates dependency in the midstream chain, one of the persons cited above said.

The latest technologies in solar cells, such as TOPCon and HJT, require fresh equipment import cycles as imported ones undercut domestic pricing, the person added.

India has around 225 GW of nameplate module manufacturing capacity, and about 30 GW of solar cell capacity is currently available domestically. In bi-polar plates, components found in hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers, physical vapor deposition and chemical vapor deposition coating are not available as well and gold and platinum thin-film deposition lines are also unavailable.

The latest measure will widen the focus beyond solar manufacturing to upstream and clean energy components where India still relies heavily on imports, particularly in green hydrogen equipment and critical raw materials used across the renewable energy supply chain.