Friday, September 05, 2014: Following the delay in anti-dumping decision on the government’s part, Mercom Capital, has revised its predictions for Indian solar PV in 2014. The global clean energy communications and consulting firm, Mercom Capital Group, has revealed that India will install just below 1GW of solar PV capacity in 2014.
In its quarterly market update, the firm expects Indian solar installation volumes to echo the amounts added in 2012 and 2013 but the firm is quite hopeful that the country will recover soon and break free from the 1GW ceiling next year. The Indian solar market has been shaped by three major developments over past few months.
In May, the national election results brought in a pro-solar Prime Minister in India in the form of Narendra Modi and the election result coincided with the release of draft guidelines for Phase II, Batch 2 of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). These two points played positive roles in India but the anti-dumping decision delay resulted in a slow growth which reached 500MW in the first six months of the year. On 22 August Indian solar industry heaved a collective sigh of relief as the government let pass a deadline on the proposed imposition of anti-dumping duties on cells and modules which are imported from US, China, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Several entities including Mercom Capital have viewed the government’s silence regarding the issue. The industry has some good news though. The uncertainty which has been created by the entire process was avoidable, at least Mercom Capital thinks so. Procurement plans were stalled temporarily as the Trade and Commerce Ministry pushed for the introduction of anti-dumping duties to serve the Indian manufacturers. But the renewable energy ministry took a strict stand against imposing the same. The damage has hampered the growth in Indian solar industry to a large extent, though.
Mercom Capital Group co-founder and CEO, Raj Prabhu, said, “Although the anti-dumping case affected short-term outlook on installation growth, the end result was good and the NDA administration was able to take decisive action, making a pragmatic ‘big picture’ decision that will remove uncertainty and help put the solar industry back on track for sustainable, long-term growth.” Mercom sources have revealed that India’s government has assured domestic manufacturers that there will be an “adequate offtake” of their solar products through government projects. The Indian export market’s graph looks healthy, though.
