By AFP and Focus | 2026-02-12

MUNDRA, India -- The race for green energy is on. India, driven by soaring electricity demand and a push to reduce reliance on China, is rapidly producing solar panels, fueling a booming yet uncertain market.

At the Adani Group's factory in Mundra, Gujarat state, assembly lines churn out photovoltaic panels around the clock.

Up to 10,000 a day come off the line, with most sent straight to Khavda, farther north, where the Indian conglomerate is finishing what will be the world's largest solar park.

Yet Adani Solar's CEO, Muralee Krishnan, says operations are "actually lagging."

"Our capacity needs to be fully used -- we should work 48 hours a day."

The intensity is matched by other major producers in the world's most populous nation.

At the Tata conglomerate factory in Tirunelveli, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, 4,000 mostly female employees also work nonstop shifts.

"They operate 24/7, so you get better yield, better efficiency, better productivity," said Praveer Sinha, CEO of Tata Power.

"You cannot stop the production line … there is a rush to produce to maximize the output."

With the twin imperatives of development and lower carbon emissions, India has set itself ambitious renewable energy targets.

Last year, it said half its electricity generation capacity was now "green," five years ahead of the timeline set in the Paris Agreement on lowering emissions.

But 75% of its electricity is still generated by coal-fired power plants, with inflexible operations and long-term coal power purchase agreements hampering renewable uptake.

'Make in India'

There are signs of change.

Last year, coal-fired power generation in India fell 3%, only the second full-year drop recorded in half a decade, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Renewable capacity of 230 GW is set to rise to 500 GW by 2030, including 280 GW of solar.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed another constraint on the industry: "Make in India."

That means there is no question of importing solar panels from China, which supplies about 90% of the world's market.

All public tenders require "local" production, which India supports with substantial subsidies that have attracted big businesses.

Tata, a pioneer in solar panels since the 1990s, has been joined by Adani and Reliance, which have built state-of-the-art, highly automated factories.

"The quality of the product is very, very critical," said Ashish Khanna, CEO of Adani Green Energy.

"When you are building a project of this size, you also need to be very reassured of the supply chain. We cannot have a disruption or interruption in that particular process."

But for now, the technology and raw materials still come from China.

And Beijing has complained to the World Trade Organization over the subsidies and restrictions on its solar panels.

The solar push is so intense that Adani is considering silicon mining to secure a key raw material, company insiders say, and there are suggestions Tata Power is eyeing in-house silicon-wafer production.

'A huge market'

Growth in the sector is already staggering, with Indian solar manufacturing capacity expected to soon exceed 125 GW, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

But that is triple current demand in India, said Wood Mackenzie analyst Yana Hryshko.

Government incentives have "been highly effective in spurring factory announcements, but the industry is now seeing warning signs of rapid overcapacity," Hryshko said in a report last year.

The sector's long-term sustainability may therefore depend on exports, with some companies already targeting global markets.

"Solar is a huge market: the world will see it doubling, from 2,000 GW to 4,000 GW in four years," said Ashish Khanna, head of the International Solar Alliance.

"The question is now -- will Indian manufacturers be globally competitive compared to China?"

Tejpreet Chopra, from the private power company Bharat Light and Power, said "the problem is that it's cheaper to import from China than to buy local."

And the level of manufacturing in China "is so much higher that it's very difficult to match," he added.

Export boost

Some manufacturers say the outlook may now be shifting.

The recently announced US-India trade deal, which lowers tariffs on Indian exports to 18% from 25%, has been welcomed by Indian solar manufacturers as a boost to export prospects after months of uncertainty.

Prashant Mathur, chief executive of solar module maker Saatvik Green Energy, described the agreement as a "strategic turning point" for the sector, saying it addresses "long-standing concerns about Chinese producers circumventing tariffs" and positions India as a "credible and dependable alternative manufacturing base" aligned with US trade and industrial objectives, according to the Mercom India news site.

Industry executives say Indian manufacturers now have sufficient capacity to support a non-Chinese supply chain for solar cells and modules, potentially improving their competitiveness in the US market. It has traditionally been the sector's largest export destination.

The CEO of Tata Power, which does not yet export, remains convinced his business has a bright future.

"We strongly believe," said Sinha, "that solar will play a very important role in the renewable space of India."