Taking on China in solar manufacturing

Made-in-India solar panels might not be the most competitive, but what might work in the country's favour is the strategic shift in the priorities of companies post Covid

China’s dominance in the solar sector was underlined once again when BloombergNEF published the latest manufacturing update for the sector. Chinese companies managed to secure an even larger share of the global solar business in 2019 (see box: Solar equipment landscape).

Looking in turn at the different parts of the solar value chain, the share of Chinese firms in polysilicon production increased to 66 per cent. The top three wafer manufacturers are companies from China (Longi Green, GCL Poly and Zhonghuan), and they increased their market shares. Almost 80 per cent of the world’s solar cells came from Chinese companies, as