{"id":20934,"date":"2018-05-02T10:50:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T05:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/?p=20934"},"modified":"2018-05-02T10:50:49","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T05:20:49","slug":"the-state-of-dilemma-for-the-indian-solar-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/2018\/05\/02\/the-state-of-dilemma-for-the-indian-solar-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Dilemma For The Indian Solar Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>The Ongoing Debate Around Safeguard Duty Imposition on Imported Solar Panels<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The India Solar Industry is in a state of dilemma, with the government <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/2018\/04\/24\/good-news-for-the-indian-solar-industry-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exempting imported solar panels from customs duty<\/a> <\/strong>on the one hand, while thinking about <strong>imposing safeguard duties<\/strong> on the other.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA) has proposed imposition of 70% safeguard duties on imports of solar cells and modules to the Commerce ministry. ISMA which consists of leading domestic solar companies like <strong>Adani Group, Vikram Solar,\u00a0and Tata Power<\/strong>, are proposing these duties in order to protect the Indian solar manufacturers and thus giving a boost to the government\u2019s \u201cMake in India\u201d policy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The progress of solar development could be hampered if such duties are imposed as India is a price sensitive market (as imported solar cells and modules will get expensive if these duties are imposed). As a result, developers would be reluctant in buying imported solar products and end up buying the domestically manufactured solar cells and modules.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16748\" src=\"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india.jpg\" alt=\"solar panels india\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india.jpg 640w, https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india-500x266.jpg 500w, https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india-300x159.jpg 300w, https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india-141x75.jpg 141w, https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/solar-panels-india-480x255.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width:767px) 480px, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But there are few questions which the government needs to consider before making a final decision:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>The solar tariff in India is the lowest worldwide, if the cost component increases (with the duty imposition), the solar business might become less lucrative for the developers.<\/li>\n<li>Are domestically manufactured solar products competitive enough?<\/li>\n<li>Will these duties benefit only a handful few at the cost of masses?<\/li>\n<li>Has India achieved the technical competence and efficiency results as their large Chinese counterparts like Jinko and Trina Solar?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">India has just <strong><em>achieved one-fifth of its full solar installation target<\/em><\/strong> last year. That means the country will have to ramp up its solar activities in the coming four-five years. The solar developers think the country still needs a few more years to become completely import free. The Tier 1 Chinese solar products are not only price competitive but also of superior quality. The Indian solar manufacturers, except for a handful few, have failed to exude the technical competence and manufacturing muscle as their western counterparts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, with all that said, I also believe that having a safeguard duty in place will definitely give an <strong>incentive for encouraging domestic solar manufacturing<\/strong>. Though it would pinch the Indian solar developers initially, it would encourage production in the long run. The cost of setting up a solar plant is now cheaper than installing a thermal power plant in most parts of the world. Having a safeguard duty in India\u00a0will encourage domestic players to set up solar manufacturing plants in India. Many countries including China have protectionist policies in place to save their domestic manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another benefit from duty imposition would be safeguarding India from flooding with relatively poor quality imported solar cells and panels. Imposition of safeguard duty should not be considered on a standalone basis, instead, the government should also impose proper\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/2017\/09\/19\/indian-bis-quality-requirement-for-solar-panels-could-halt-surging-chinese-imports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BIS requirements<\/a> for quality checks and controls on domestically manufactured solar products along with getting technically superior quality products manufactured.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">India is laying the foundation of a solar nation and all we want is the foundation to be strong!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ongoing Debate Around Safeguard Duty Imposition on Imported Solar Panels The India Solar Industry is in a state of dilemma, with the government exempting imported<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,45],"tags":[2715,2975,2977,5508,5522],"class_list":["post-20934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india-green-stocks-greeninvest","category-solar-renewable-energy-greeninvest","tag-incentive-for-encouraging-domestic-solar-manufacturing","tag-indian-government-exempting-imported-solar-panels-from-customs-duty","tag-indian-government-imposing-safeguard-duties-on-panels","tag-the-ongoing-debate-around-safeguard-duty-imposition-on-imported-solar-panels","tag-the-state-of-dilemma-for-the-indian-solar-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}