India Moves to Strengthen Domestic Solar Manufacturing — New Policy Could Reshape Industry

India Moves to Strengthen Domestic Solar Manufacturing — New Policy Could Reshape Industry

November 10, 2025

The recently released “List-II” under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) – the latest effort by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) – aims at enhancing the domestic solar cell production to help meet the country’s growing demand for solar PV modules.

According to CEEW, though ALMM List-II is an important step towards vertical integration, Cells + Modules, current domestic cell-manufacturing capacity is far below that of modules, thus putting pressure on the manufacturers to scale up if they want to meet the future demand.

The new regime stipulates that from June 2026, the module makers listed under the ALMM List-I will procure cells only from the List-II manufacturers for modules to be installed in the country. The move aims at restricting imports and encouraging local production.

As of November 2025, List-II consists of seven companies whose aggregate cell manufacturing capacity is about 17.88 GW covering about 60% of India’s estimated aggregate cell manufacturing capacity of approximately 29.66 GW.

However, some structural obstacles remain, including high capital requirements, heavy reliance on imported machinery and materials, and a lack of skilled technicians, which act as a barrier to scaling up cell production to match module manufacturing capacity. Overcoming these hurdles and expanding capacity-possibly under schemes such as the Production Linked Incentive scheme-could really help India reduce its dependence on imported solar components, improve quality control, and give a fillip to its domestic solar manufacturing ecosystem.