With the promotion of India's local manufacturing policy, China's exports of photovoltaic modules to India have gradually declined. New research from Ember, the
UK climate and energy think-tank, shows that India's imports of solar panels from China have fallen sharply as the country prioritises domestic solar manufacturing.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
, Captain Albert E Theberge India's imports of solar panels from China fell 76% from a year earlier, according to Ember, a British energy think tank. In the first half of 2023, India imported 2.3 GW of solar modules from China, compared with 9.8 GW in the same period of 2022. This is due to India's imposition of tariffs and its efforts to upgrade its local manufacturing capacity.
The report notes that India is the only country that has significantly reduced its imports of solar panels from China. As India focuses on and prioritizes the development of domestic solar manufacturing, Asia became the only region to reduce solar imports from China in the first half of 2023. Neshwin Rodrigues, India's power policy analyst
at Ember think tank, said: "After 2022, India's domestic manufacturing sector has begun to grow due to the latest policy interventions, so the dependence on Chinese solar module imports has indeed decreased.". As India moves closer to self-sufficiency in solar manufacturing, its over-reliance on Chinese modules and cells will no longer be the limiting factor. What India needs most now is to create a favorable policy environment to ensure that the installed capacity of solar energy does not lag behind the target of the national power plan.
Ember's report looks at China's export data and introduces a new data set to provide updated monthly information on China's exports to each destination country. China accounts for more than 80% of the global market share of solar manufacturing capacity, and the expansion of China's exports is of great significance to the development of global clean energy. China's solar panel exports surged 34% in the first half of
2023, reaching a global total of 114 GW, compared with 85 GW a year earlier. Among them, Europe is the main import region, accounting for 58% (66 GW) of China's solar module exports in the first half of 2023. Moreover, Europe is also the region with the most significant absolute growth in the world, with its imports of solar panels from China increasing by 47% year on year.
Brazil became the second largest importer, importing 9.5 GW of solar panels from China in the first half of 2023. The report also noted that India has become the second largest importer of Chinese-made solar cells after Turkey.
Source: Ember's China Solar Export Data
The International Energy Agency reported that global solar PV manufacturing output surged by more than 70% to nearly 450 GW in 2022. The agency also predicts that global production capacity will double again by 2024 to nearly 1,000 GW per year. China remains the largest contributor to this growth, with the US, Europe, India and Asia adding about 70 GW of annual capacity. "We have plenty of solar panels and just need to speed up the installation process," said Sam Hawkins
, Ember's head of data. Therefore, the focus of policy should be to ensure that installation and grid connection can increase as rapidly as the global supply of components.
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