By Karan Sharma
India’s renewable energy journey is not just about adding generation capacity, but also about promoting the domestic manufacturing of renewable energy equipment in a bid to ensure energy independence. According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), as of March 31, 2026, India’s cumulative solar installed capacity had reached 150.26 GW, while wind stood at 56.09 GW, taking the combined solar-wind base to 206.36 GW. In FY 2025-26 alone, the country added 44.61 GW of solar and 6.05 GW of wind. Despite the growing installed capacity, the gap between installed capacity and domestic production of most components is much narrower than it was a few years ago due to an equally fast growing manufacturing base, but it is still wide enough to matter in components such as cells, wafers and battery storage.
Against this backdrop, Renewable Watch provides an overview of domestic manufacturing progress across the solar, wind and storage segments, recent policy developments, emerging gaps and the outlook for India’s renewable manufacturing ecosystem.
Solar manufacturing
Current status
Solar is now the clearest example of India’s manufacturing push translating into real industrial scale. According to the Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy Shripad Yesso Naik, in a Lok Sabha response in March 2026, the country’s solar module manufacturing capacity under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM)-I had reached about 172.59 GW. The capacity is concentrated in a few states: Gujarat, with 80.06 GW, has the largest manufacturing capacity, followed by Rajasthan with 21.78 GW, Tamil Nadu with 15.2 GW, Maharashtra with 11.41 GW and Haryana with 9.75 GW. Moreover, as per Shripad Yesso Naik’s Rajya Sabha response in March 2026, the solar cell manufacturing capacity under ALMM-II is 27.23 GW. Gujarat again leads with 11.25 GW, followed by Tamil Nadu with 7.97 GW, Telangana with 3.28 GW, Karnataka with 1.83 GW and Andhra Pradesh with 1.07 GW. The recent growth has been fast. As per the MNRE, about 81 GW of module manufacturing capacity was added in calendar year 2025 alone. However, there is still a reliance on solar imports, especially for solar cells.
Additionally, domestic manufacturers are exporting solar components from India as well. As per the export-import databank of the Department of Commerce, India exported solar cells and modules worth about $994 million in April-December 2025, a 12.3 per cent year-on-year increase from the $885 million exported in April-December 2024.
Policy measures
In the past year, several policy initiatives were implemented to address supply chain challenges. The MNRE reduced GST on solar cells from 12 per cent to 5 per cent from September 2025 onwards.
In October 2025, the MNRE also exempted basic customs duty (BCD) on imports for certain raw materials needed for solar manufacturing. It also introduced the Renewable Energy Equipment Import Monitoring System in November 2025 to track imports of items used in solar module and wind generator manufacturing. In a significant move, in March 2026, the government extended the ALMM framework to solar ingots and wafers (ALMM-III), which will come into effect on June 1, 2028.
Wind manufacturing
Current status
Wind has a smaller but more mature manufacturing base than solar. According to Shripad Yesso Naik’s Lok Sabha response in March 2026, India’s wind turbine manufacturing capacity under ALMM-Wind stood at 24.09 GW, with 70-80 per cent indigenisation already achieved. Around 15 manufacturers with 31 models of turbine unit sizes ranging from 225 kW to 5.2 MW are active in the country.
The wind turbine manufacturing capacity is heavily concentrated in the western and southern industrialised states. Tamil Nadu leads the total manufacturing capacity at 7.5 GW, followed by Maharashtra at 5.08 GW, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu at 3.12 GW, Gujarat at 2.1 GW and Puducherry at 1.89 GW. Similarly, total wind turbine blade manufacturing in India stood at 15.57 GW as of March 2026. Blade manufacturing was led by Gujarat at 4.4 GW, followed by Tamil Nadu at 3.6 GW, Andhra Pradesh at 2.26 GW, Karnataka at 1.5 GW and Maharashtra at 1.05 GW.
Policy measures
In June 2025, the MNRE issued revised guidelines for prototype wind turbine models to support testing and certification. In July 2025, the MNRE renamed the Revised List of Models and Manufacturers for wind turbines as ALMM-Wind and mandated the use of listed components such as blades, towers, generators, gearboxes and special bearings, along with the details of their vendors, as well as separate standard operation procedures for their inspection. These initiatives have tightened quality control requirements and are expected to push manufacturers towards more domestic sourcing of components.
Storage manufacturing
While India’s storage manufacturing base is still developing, a gap is visible between ambition and execution. As per the Central Electricity Authority’s Long-Term National Resource Adequacy Plan, released in March 2026, 10,658.94 MW/28,739.32 MWh of battery energy storage system capacity was under construction, and 22,347.15 MW/69,836.7 MWh was at the tendering stage. Demand for storage is expanding rapidly, largely driven by the growing share of variable renewable energy in the grid and the increasing need for balancing capacity.
Alongside deployment demand, the manufacturing push has also begun to take shape. As per the Ministry of Heavy Industries, the production-linked incentive-based National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage scheme has already awarded 40 GW of the targeted 50 GWh of storage capacity to four companies. However, as of March 2026, only 1 GWh of manufacturing capacity under the scheme has been installed by Ola Cell Technologies. Although storage manufacturing is slowly moving from the award stage to partial commissioning, it is still far from a mature domestic industry, with most battery components still being imported.
Similarly, the domestic manufacturing push has also extended into the hydrogen value chain through indigenous electrolyser production. Under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, incentives have been awarded for the indigenous manufacturing of 3,000 MW per annum of electrolyser capacity to 15 companies as per Lok Sabha answers in March 2026. The largest awarded capacities went to Reliance Electrolyser Manufacturing, John Cockerill, L&T Electrolysers, Advait, Matrix Gas and Renewable, NewAge Green Electro, Waaree Energies and Adani Enterprises, each with 300 MW per annum. Meanwhile, Ohmium Operations received 274 MW, GH2 Solar received 105 MW and Homihydrogen received 101.5 MW.
Challenges and future outlook
Although India has clearly strengthened the indigenous renewable manufacturing base, domestic manufacturing for the entire value chain is not yet complete. There are several challenges still present in India’s manufacturing ecosystem. In solar manufacturing, the module capacity is close to more than six times the total cell capacity. This imbalance is the main structural issue in the sector. There have also been ongoing concerns that, in certain cases domestically produced solar modules may exceed near-term demand, leading to periods of underutilised manufacturing capacity. Moreover, despite having built a large base for finishing and assembling modules, the supply chain still thins out sharply as one moves upstream to cells, wafers and, further back, ingots and polysilicon. The MNRE’s inclusion of cells in ALMM-II only began in July 2025 and continues to be revised, while the inclusion of wafers in ALMM-III came in March 2026. Hence, the real test would be whether cell and wafer capacity can rise quickly enough to reduce the reliance on imports without creating idle module capacity. This will require sustained policy clarity on ALMM expansion, as well as the development of domestic polysilicon and wafer manufacturing capacity to achieve full value chain integration.
As per the Global Wind Energy Council’s India Wind Report 2025, released in August 2025, India is the world’s third largest wind equipment manufacturing hub and is capable of meeting 10 per cent of global demand by 2030 if scale improves. However, achieving this would require further strengthening of the wind manufacturing space, which remains dependent on a relatively small set of component manufacturers, particularly for specialised components such as gearboxes, generators and bearings. Hence, greater diversification of component supply chains and continued investment in niche turbine component technologies will be necessary.
The storage and hydrogen manufacturing space is much more import-dependent compared to solar and wind. Both batteries and electrolysers rely on critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, many of which have limited global reserves and are concentrated in a few regions. To address this, several policy initiatives have been taken, including the proposal of BCD exemption for importing capital goods needed for critical mineral processing, as well as expanded tax deduction eligibility for expenditure on prospecting and exploring critical minerals from April 1, 2026, under the Finance Bill, 2026. However, over the longer term, the key requirement will be the development of domestic mineral processing and recycling ecosystems, along with greater adoption of alternative battery chemistries and less mineral-intensive electrolyser technologies such as alkaline-based systems.
If these measures are followed through, India will have a more complete manufacturing base for solar, wind and storage components. The pace will not be even, and the gaps will not close quickly, but the industry will be directed towards a more stable future.
