Adani Group is the Number One solar cell and module manufacturing company in India as of 31 December 2016, and it is also the only Indian company to have more than 1 GW of cell and module manufacturing capacity as per MNRE. There is however a catch. According to MNRE, the cell and manufacturing capacity of Adani Group is not yet operational.
If we remove Adani Group from the equation, Tata Power Solar has the highest nameplate cell manufacturing capacity in India(300 MW annual capacity), followed by Jupiter Solar, Moser Baer and IndoSolar. However, Jupiter Solar tops the list when it comes to operational capacity(280 MW), followed by Tata Power Solar(250 MW). In total, there are 17 Cell Manufacturers(installed capacity) with a installed capacity of 2953 MW and 1448 MW of operational capacity. 10 companies have 95% of the operational cell manufacturing capacity.
When it comes to module manufacturing, the country has 8113 MW of installed capacity and 5286 MW of operational capacity. There are a total of 104 Module manufacturers, but the top 20 companies have almost 70% of the operational capacity. Emmvee Photovoltaics, Vikram Solar and Waaree Energies have 500 MW of installed capacity(module manufacturing) each and all their installed capacity is operational.
While India has come a long way in Cell and Module manufacturing, the country is still a very minor player in the PV manufacturing space. Just to give a perspective, Jinko Solar, world’s number one module manufacturer in 2016, had a module manufacturing capacity of 6.5 GW and is estimated to have shipped around 6 GW of PV modules in 2016. This is higher than India’s TOTAL operational capacity of about 5. 3 GW.
This scale difference is further magnified in solar cell manufacturing. Hanwha Q-Cells, world’s number one cell manufacturer, had a cell manufacturing capacity of about 5.7 GW, which almost double that of India’s cell manufacturing capacity(installed) of around 2.95 GW.
India has a long way to go, indeed.
Update 1 : On February 13, 2017, MNRE updated the list by removing Adani Group’s cell and manufacturing capacity. The updated list of Indian solar cell and module manufacturers can be accessed here.
(This blog is supported by Aspiration Cleantech Ventures)