In India, the great race to manufacture solar panels

In the vast Adani Group factory in Mundra (west), the production lines continuously churn out photovoltaic panels. Up to 10.000 units per day.

Most are shipped to the Khavda desert, about 100 kilometers to the north, where the Indian industrialist is completing the construction of what will become the largest solar power plant on the planet in 2030.

"We need to be operating at full capacity," asserts Adani Solar CEO Muralee Krishnan. "It would take 48-hour days to meet all the demand. In fact, we're even lagging behind..."

For the dozen or so Indian players who share the sector today, it is the same urgency.

In their factory in Tirunelveli, in the state of Tamil Nadu (south), the 4.000 employees - mostly women - of the Tata family conglomerate are also not idle.

"They work three eight-hour shifts," confirms Tata Power CEO Praveer Sinha. "For better efficiency and productivity, we can't stop the production lines."

Torn between the dual imperative of ensuring the development of its population and reducing its carbon emissions, the most populated country on the planet - nearly 1,5 billion inhabitants - has set itself very ambitious objectives in terms of renewable energies.

"Make in India"

India announced in 2025 that 50% of its electricity generation capacity was now "green," five years ahead of the Paris Agreement deadline. The 230 gigawatts (GW) already installed will increase to 500 GW by 2030, including 280 GW of solar power.

There is still a long way to go. Three-quarters of the electricity consumed is still generated by coal-fired power plants, whose operations and long-term supply contracts are slowing the transition to renewables.

But the momentum has been gained. Last year, production generated by coal fell by 3%, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a constraint on these ambitious goals: "Made in India." Importing solar panels from China, which supplies 90% of the world's energy, was out of the question. In its tenders, the government required locally sourced products, heavily subsidized.

Major Indian industrialists responded to this dual imperative without hesitation. Tata, then Adani and Reliance, built state-of-the-art robotic factories.

"Product quality is essential for projects the size of (the Khavda) power plant," explains Adani Green CEO Ashish Khanna. "You have to be able to rely on the entire supply chain at all times."

Due to the urgency of the situation, the technology and raw material - the silicon wafers at the base of the photovoltaic cells - come from... China.

Unhappy with the subsidies granted to its Indian competitors and the restrictions imposed by New Delhi on its products, Beijing has also complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"Overcapacity"

To control its production, Adani is also considering starting to extract silicon. And Tata Power, for its part, is studying the idea of ​​manufacturing its own silicon wafers, its CEO acknowledges.

The sector's growth in India is already staggering. This year, its production capacity is expected to exceed 125 GW, notes the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

But beware, warns analyst Yana Hryshko, this is already three times more than domestic demand. "Public aid (...) has boosted announcements of factory creation, but the first signs of overcapacity are appearing."

The future of the sector therefore lies in exporting. Some producers are already doing so; global demand exists.

"The solar energy market is expected to grow from 2.000 to 4.000 GW within four years," predicts Ashish Khanna, the director general of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). "The question is whether Indian manufacturers will be competitive against China?"

"It's always cheaper to import from China than to manufacture here," replies Tejpreet Chopra, head of the private electricity company Bharat Light and Power. "And you have to take geopolitics into account. Given the level of tariffs, it's difficult to sell in the United States..."

Despite these challenges, the head of Tata Power, which has not yet ventured into exporting, remains convinced that his business still has a bright future. "Solar energy," asserts Praveer Sinha, "will play an increasingly important role in India in the future."