The 1st physical event of TaiyangNews, Solar Technology Conference.India 2025 held on April 10-11, 2025 in New Delhi, India was a grand success. Bringing together key stakeholders from across the solar PV manufacturing value chain, the event featured insightful discussions on technology trends, policy, and domestic production that are summarized as day 1 and day 2. The speakers and attendees made sure we touched upon every topic of interest and concern for the India solar PV manufacturing industry. Also visit the STC.I 2025 website for high resolution images from the event that capture the energy and engagement of the industry gathering.
Team TaiyangNews is on ground zero at Hotel Aloft in India’s capital, New Delhi, for the 1st Solar Technology Conference India 2025. Brainstorming… Working late into the night… Looking into every little detail before the doors to the conference hall open!
Good morning! TaiyangNews is all set to welcome all solar PV industry colleagues and enthusiasts to the Solar Technology Conference India 2025! See you all soon! Find us at Hotel Aloft in New Delhi's Aerocity.
Boxes being unboxed, name tags being sorted, all looks good till someone remembers… that one most important printout is nowhere to be seen! Last minute scramble mode is on!
TaiyangNews is happy to be in India with its first in-person Solar Technology Conference! Stay tuned for leading solar companies, technologists sharing ideas and innovations for a burgeoning solar manufacturing market.
The excitement is building up. Time for greetings and new connections! Registration desk is getting busier. In the next half an hour, we will begin proceedings on Day 1! ‘Storm before the calm’ should we say? Stay tuned!
A few minutes to go for the big event! Stay tuned for more insights on manufacturing strategies and technology overviews from Day 1!
While the registrations are still underway, we welcome you to a room full of solar industry leaders, technology experts and stakeholders.
Solar business is tough, but as a technology, it is growing so much quicker than any other technology, ready to reach a TW level. Its LCOE has consistently come down, and it is the most versatile of all power generation technologies, so the future is bright. It is much needed too as climate change stares us in the face. But in the near term, solar growth is slowing down in some mature markets. We need grids and batteries, says TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela in his opening remarks at the TaiyangNews Solar Technology Conference India 2025.
Day 1 of the TaiyangNews Solar Technology Conference India 2025 sees SolarPower Europe Director of Global Affairs Máté Heisz and NSEFI CEO Subramanyam Pulipaka sign a memorandum of understanding, expanding their cooperation from deployment in 2019 to solar PV manufacturing now.
RCT Solutions CEO Prof. Dr. Peter Fath believes that in the current geopolitical situation, Indian solar manufacturers should focus on increasing production volumes to meet growing demand, both at home and abroad. But they should not miss the bus on next-generation technologies. He recommends that manufacturers include a pilot line for upcoming technologies, especially for IBC solar technology, which he believes will be the future of PV, and perhaps develop their own IP portfolio.
NSEFI CEO Subramanyam Pulipaka projects 160 GW of solar module manufacturing for India by 2030. Cell capacity will not match up reaching 120 GW, while wafer and polysilicon will both likely go up to 100 GW each. India needs to develop the entire ecosystem for the PV industry, and a lot hinges on the 4Ms – Machines, Materials, Manpower and Money – for which he underlined the importance of international collaboration, especially with European partners.
The NZIA Resilience Criteria gives an advantage to European-made solar products, as well as to those from countries ‘outside the dominant source’ of supply. This, stressed SolarPower Europe Director of Global Affairs Máté Heisz, opens a market opportunity for Indian manufacturers. At the same time, the EU, with its extensive specialized equipment supply chain can help India with its ingot and wafer needs.
Dr. Wolfgang Herbst, the Managing Director of Viridis.iQ GmbH, lists low-cost, stable electricity supply and solid financing as the must-haves for any country, including India, to get into the polysilicon business. “Everyone wants polysilicon to become independent,” he said, but there is no polysilicon without policy support because it is such a capital-intensive business subject to market volatility. Not for beginners, he cautions!
India is blessed with good quality quartz supply; however, the key to competitive silicon production is low-cost electricity prices, stressed Dr. Wolfgang Herbst, the Managing Director of Viridis.iQ GmbH.
Dr. Zhixin Li, CEO & CTO of China-based Linton Technologies, which operates an equivalent of 300 GW of annual production capacity of crystal equipment, and slicer and ingot machines, said his company is looking for new markets to supply this capacity to. India is one such destination, he added.
While China, in the context of trade conflict, has limited exports for certain raw materials like graphite to certain markets, Linton has established a factory in Vietnam, enabling it to support its customers around the world.
In the executive panel moderated by TaiyangNews Head of Technology Shravan Chunduri, President-Global Sales for Grew Solar Hiten Parekh, RSOLEC Chairman & CEO Milind S. Kulkarni, and CEEW Senior Programme Lead Rishabh Jain, discussed challenges & solutions for upstream manufacturing integration in India. While it is a huge opportunity, it is for brave hearts, primarily because of its capital-intensive nature. Yet, compared to cells and modules, the supply chain is simpler, which is one of the enablers for investment in this space.
Head of Technology at Fraunhofer ISE, Jochen Rentsch reflected on TOPCon solar technology, the current industry workhorse whose name the German solar research institute coined back in 2013. The technology has several solar PV manufacturers lodged in patent wars of late. Rentsch clarified that a thorough patent analysis is complex due to varied implementation routes, cell/module designs, and production/market locations.
While the world has increasingly adopted TOPCon, PERC still remains popular in some markets. Yet, the future belongs to back contact technology as it offers the advantage of higher efficiency over TOPCon, said Co-Founder & Director ISC Konstanz Dr. Radovan Kopecek while referring to the TaiyangNews Top Solar Modules Listing. For the next few years, cost/W peak will be higher, he admitted, but eventually bifacial back contact technology will become the ‘emperor’ of energy markets, he forecast.
Prof. Dinesh Kabra of IIT Bombay says his team has achieved a lab-scale efficiency of 29.84% for perovskite solar cells, in collaboration with industry partner ART PV India. The team now targets 34% efficiency by December 2025, with plans to set up a 2,500 sq. ft. facility near Mumbai. Prof. Kabra said the team aims to report 30% commercial-scale efficiency for solar cells by December 2027.
Executive panelists – Indosol Solar COO Balachander Krishnan, Premier Energies Chief Strategy Officer Sudhir M Reddy, Reliance Industries CTO Omkar Jani, and Emmvee Group CEO & President Suhas Donthi – join TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela, and RCT Solutions CEO Prof. Dr. Peter Fath for a high-level executive panel discussion on profitable solar manufacturing along the value chain.
Equipment making will be the next wave in India which is where collaboration with European research institutes and companies will be important, more so because skilled labor in the technology is missing. It will work though if there is availability of local equipment spares, stress executive panelists on day 1 of TaiyangNews Solar Technology Conference.India 2025.
Grab your cuppa ☕ and head to day 2 of the TaiyangNews Solar Technology Conference.India 2025 at Aloft Hotel, Aerocity, for there is a full schedule ahead and plenty more to explore. Let’s dive in energized!
Agenda for day 2 is all set with some great sessions and speakers lined up. Today we cover PV module and cell material, including encapsulants, backsheet, metallization paste and more. Let’s jump in and make the most of it! We start at 9.30 AM IST.
TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela summarizing highlights from Day 1 of the conference, when speakers and participants deliberated India’s role as the emerging global solar PV manufacturing hub. Challenges need to be tackled, but opportunities galore!
VDMA Sector Group Leader Dr. Puzant Baliozian gave a sneak peek into the ITRPV 16th edition, which will be launched fully at The smarter E/Intersolar Europe. In 2024, the total solar module shipments are expected to have reached 703 GW, with an average module spot market price of $0.08/W, and 566 GW installed. Of this, 98% is crystalline silicon and 2% thin-film. n-Type TOPCon now dominates, with its share expected to reach 68% in 2025.
Research Analyst for S&P Global Commodity Insights, Abhyuday Tewari, sees huge potential for solar PV technology growing in India. Among the various growth levers is voluntary corporate procurement, since no specific mandates exist at present. Their interest is driven by sustainability targets and cost savings.
Dr. Josua Stückelberger, Director of Technology, LAPLACE Renewable Energy Technology, a big TOPCon production technology promoter, says the company supplies its proprietary LPCVD with ex-situ doping technology that allows its customers to sell to the US and Europe, as it realizes the gravity of the IP issue. Most patent concerns in the US are related to PECVD, he explained.
Pon Ramesh Chelladurai, Director – Sales and Service, Jinchen Machinery, a solar PV production equipment manufacturer, led the audience through the company’s elaborate factory layout, while sharing plans for TBC as well as tandem solar cell production preparedness. He also stressed the significance of collaborating with universities and institutes to stay ahead in this extremely competitive technological world.
There is enough silver for TW production, but cost is a concern since photovoltaic is only about the cost, said Peter Stamm, VP, Overseas Sales, Maxwell. He also shared that Maxwell sees HJT as the right companion for perovskite for tandem production since it has a cost advantage of 0.1 RMB/W over other technologies in silicon costs.
Kaien Chang VP of Technology - Oversea, Solamet, bats for frit optimization to achieve better reliability while touting the company’s proprietary Pb-Te-O Frit chemistry. It may have up to 0.05-0.1% eff. compromise based on different p+ emitter or LECO process parameters. But even beyond the metallization impact, module BoM also has a role to play in reliability, he points out. Double-glass with POE is less prone to reliability concerns.
RENA Technologies claims to offer a cost-of-ownership advantage through its ozone cleaning solution in processes such as texturing, edge isolation, and poly wrap-around etching. The company’s Senior R&D Manager Solar & Battery, Dr. Damian Brunner, explained that, unlike standard cleaning methods in China, which rely on pSC1 (KOH and H₂O₂), RENA's approach reduces the number of cleans (7 vs. 8) and significantly lowers HF and KOH consumption. He admitted that while the ozone system requires higher CapEx, it delivers long-term savings through negligible running costs, mainly limited to power and oxygen, with no chemical waste. This lowers both waste and overall OpEx.
Manjunath Jyothinagara, MD UHP Technologies highlighted how important clean rooms are for solar PV manufacturing. But he also pointed out a common issue—factories often get delayed when the focus drifts from running things efficiently to just worrying about CapEx.
Turnkey intelligent solar manufacturing solutions supplier Jinchen’s Deputy General Manager, Chen Kin Lee, makes a pitch for its new machines for the Indian market – Cell Unpacking Machine, SMBB Scribing & Welding and Stringing All in One Machine, and Auto Layup with Bussing integrated machine. These can be retrofitted into existing lines provided requisite space is available.
Mondragon Assembly India CEO Manu Gaurang presented the multi-stack pad-press laminator for the Indian market, with features like no bending, no delamination, and no edge pinching. Calling it a future-proof investment, Gaurang added that this has OpEx advantages as it works out to around €2.5 million/GW in 5 years and almost €8 million/GW in 10 years.
Dronveer Kaura from Bergen gave a rundown on ConfirmWare Technology’s latest solar stringer machines. He touted their flexibility as these are compatible with all 3 0BB routes and even back contact. The equipment design makes switching between different configurations easy, which could be a big plus for manufacturers looking to stay adaptable.
It's heartening to see India on the global solar PV map, being talked about in the same breath as China, the US and Europe. Going forward, it is crucial to talk about how solar is a long-term investment to provide stability to investors, instead of creating fear of newer technologies disrupting existing businesses. PERC is not obsolete even as TOPCon has become mainstream, for instance. It is also important to educate policymakers on the value in going, said the executive panel of Jakson Solar Module & Cells CEO Anurag Garg, Landsmill Group CEO Sandeep Garg, InSolaire Energy Limited CEO Sunit Tyagi, in conversation with RCT Solutions India Sales Director Sukumar Madugula and TaiyangNews MD Michael Schmela.
A new entrant to the encapsulant space, India’s Alishan operates 4.2 GW of encapsulant and 3 GW of coated backsheet capacity. The company is already targeting 18 GW capacity by 2027-28, according to its AGM, Business Development Dr. Khushbu D. Patel, to plug the 70% demand-supply gap in the Indian encapsulant market.
Encapsulants play a big role in PV module durability and degradation. Hangzhou First's Director of Business Development, InYoung Suh, highlighted the importance of matching the right encapsulant with cell tech. Tuning the POE layer thickness in EPE types is becoming a key factor for long-term reliability, he stressed.
With an annual production capacity of over 40 GW for PV Junction Boxes, Cables & Connectors, DhaSh PV Technologies is now scaling up to a whopping 63 GW manufacturing capacity in Tumkur, Karnataka.
Happy to have spent two fantastically productive days, doing what we do best – talk about solar! Happy to be amongst the leading names in the Indian solar manufacturing space and those from around the world, who are helping set the stage for India to become a global PV manufacturing hub. This concludes TaiyangNews’ 1st physical event, Solar Technology Conference.India 2025. Thank you one and all for all the love! Till we see you again… au revoir!
Following the success of the Solar Technology Conference.India 2025, the TaiyangNews team had the pleasure of visiting the Avaada Group Electro factory in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh yesterday. It was truly impressive to witness their first Giga Factory - a fully automated 1.5 GW solar module production facility featuring the latest in solar manufacturing technology.
A heartfelt thank you to Avaada Group Chairman Vineet Mittal for the warm invite, Tarun Pal and the Avaada team for the amazing hospitality, and RCT Solutions GmbH for the facilitation and smooth organization of the visit. We came away inspired and enriched by all we learned!