中文
India’s Ministry of Finance recently announced production related incentives to encourage companies that want to manufacture solar photovoltaic modules and batteries in India. The incentives apply to India and to foreign companies that want to open stores in India. The Indian government will provide 45 billion rupees (US $605 million) for solar photovoltaic modules and 1810 billion rupees (US $2.4 billion) for batteries.
The Treasury will provide the approved amount to different departments and then pay it to the manufacturer. The plan is part of the government’s master plan to promote self-sufficiency in key manufacturing industries and reduce dependence on imports.
India is highly dependent on Chinese imports in energy and consumer goods. Not long ago, about 90% of the solar PV modules used in India were imported from China. To this end, the Indian government has imposed safeguard and anti-dumping duties to support Indian manufacturers. Although this did lead to a decline in Chinese imports, Indian companies failed to take advantage of any significant advantages and increase market share.
The Indian government is currently seeking tariffs on solar cells and solar cell modules imported from China. Indian component manufacturers also rely heavily on Chinese solar cells to produce components.
This is not the first time that the Indian government has announced fiscal stimulus measures to promote and support the solar module industry. In fact, the government has been providing capital subsidies to manufacturers for the past few years. With the country’s desire to electrify the automotive industry and increase the share of storage in the renewable energy sector, incentives for battery manufacturing have become increasingly important.
The production related program is similar to a plan to attract mobile phone manufacturers to offer products to Samsung and apple to build factories in India. Hopefully, incentives for battery and car manufacturers will also attract Tesla and other electric vehicle makers into the Indian market.