Dronveer Kaura, the Sales Director of India for Hangzhou ConfirmWare Technology, presented the Chinese PV equipment manufacturer’s turnkey solutions for high-efficiency solar module manufacturing. Kaura specifically highlighted the 1.2 GW PV module production line as a turnkey solution with a capacity o f2,300 to 3,000 modules/shift. He touted that the equipment has a high compatibility with high and next-generation technologies such as TOPCon, XBC, HJT, and 0BB.
Manu Gaurang, CEO off Mondragon Assembly India, discussed the Spanish manufacturer’s production equipment tools, especially for the ‘flavor of the season’ – back contact, including Laboratory Stringer, and BC Stringer developed within EU-funded SEAMLESS, upgradable from TOPCon. Mondragon is also offering PV circularity solutions now, namely the disassembly unit, glass recovery unit, and reusing the equipment.
COO of Navitas Solar, Vijay Menon presented perspectives of the buyer and the manufacturer side of PV and discussed that Navitas offers as solutions. The common trends being upstream quality control, strong equipment integration, digitization, in-house reliability, and vertical integration. He also shed some light on the common problems with the practices on the installation sites, that lead to poor performance of the overall system. He shared how Navitas solar implements these trends for to fulfil the quality standards in processes and products.
A policy panel moderated by TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela, along with Shubhang Parekh, Assistant Director (Strategy, Manufacturing & PR) at NSEFI, discussed India’s strategy for achieving solar PV manufacturing autonomy. CEEW Fellow Rishabh Jain stressed the need to build upstream capabilities and collaboration between Indian academic institutions and global technology centers to develop talent. Landsmill Group CEO Sandeep Garg said solar autonomy must extend into the grid, noting that overcapacity can be positive if risks are managed. NISE Deputy Director General Jai Prakash highlighted India’s climate commitments of 500 GW of renewable energy and 292 GW of solar by 2030, adding that all the government’s efforts are aimed at supporting the achievement of these aims. Panelists agreed that long-term policy consistency and strategic guardrails are essential to the continued growth of the industry.
Debajyoti Sarangi, a Private Consultant, shared insights into common quality risks (LID, LETID, PID) related to module performance and the influence of BOM on quality. Additionally, he points to power deviation from the nameplate and the real-time figures that need to be addressed.
By 2047, India’s cumulative solar waste would increase to 11 million tonnes. CEEW Programme Associate Ajinkya Kale says this presents an opportunity for the country to enhance energy security, attract investments, and create new jobs. Right now, module recycling is financially unviable due to high operating costs. However, if manufacturers provide waste solar modules to recyclers at no cost, mechanical recycling would generate a revenue of INR 17,000 per tonne, and chemical recycling INR 15,000 per tonne.
Group CTO Waaree Group Mahesh Murthy calls for ALMM List-III for solar wafer compliance deadline to be advanced from June 2028 to June 2027, while also recommending strengthening of ALMM enforcement and compliance monitoring. Murthy stressed the need for the government to create more demand for Make in India DCR modules to enable the Indian solar PV manufacturing industry to thrive and contribute to India’s growth.
India has around 144 GW of cumulative installed solar module manufacturing capacity, even though power installations don’t match this scale. TERI Director, Electricity & Renewables, Alekhya Datta, and TERI Associate Researcher, Aniket Tiwari, recommend that Indian manufacturers diversify into markets beyond the US alone to utilize this capacity. Furthermore, vertical integration is nowhere near the module capacity as of now, as India continues to depend on imports. Various policy-driven steps (PLI, ALMM, BCD, etc.) have helped, but they were designed for scale, not to build an ecosystem, which is now required to build a competitive scale.
Let us leverage the EU-India Free Trade Agreement, the Mother of All Deals, to make solar PV production equipment ourselves, stressed National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) CEO Subrahmanyam Pulipaka. Let us also invest in technology R&D in collaboration with European partners.
Although TOPCon is widely considered the workhorse at present, RCT Solutions Founder & CEO Peter Fath urged Indian PV manufacturers to reserve some space in their factories for the upcoming cell technology – Back Contact. Those with money and resources must also make space for a small laboratory to explore perovskite tandem technologies and generate their own IP. He also stressed that India should make more glass and cables, as it gets the opportunity to reshape the global clean energy clean tech value chain, especially in the wake of the EU-India 'Mother of All Deals' and the US lowering its tariffs
Kicking off the conference, keynote speaker Peter Fath, Founder and CEO of RCT Solutions GmbH, begins by thanking the Indian manufacturers for their resilience and bravery. He calls India the hope and the powerhouse of the world. And solar is an opportunity no one wants to miss. He projects India to become the 2nd largest solar PV manufacturing hub in the world as it will grow from 80 GW annual module capacity in 2025 to 160 GW by 2030, when cell, wafer, and polysilicon capacities will expand to 120 GW, 100 GW, and 100 GW, respectively.
TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela opens the STC.I 2026 to welcome everyone. He takes the opportunity to launch the latest TaiyangNews Market Survey Report on Solar Module Production Equipment 2026.
Time for a quick hello and exchanging visiting cards before taking a seat in the conference room. This is what is always great to see at STC.I – the conference is a meeting point for global solar PV industry colleagues, for networking, getting to know each other, and building bonds to grow together as a strong PV industry.
STC.I 2026 will be a high-level gathering of technologists, manufacturing specialists, R&D experts, suppliers, and market enablers from the policy field, as they brainstorm about India building a globally competitive, high-performance PV production. Leading equipment makers from China, India, and Europe will be here as well.
Team TaiyangNews set up base at the venue yesterday, brainstorming, dealing with last-minute hiccups, celebrating a colleague’s birthday, attending to calls from vendors, attendees, speakers, and fine tuning every detail to ensure a smooth and impactful conference experience over the 2 days.
If you missed our weeks of incessant emails, calls and social media pings to apprise you of the STC.I 2026 conference, here’s your last chance to still make it if you aren’t already registered. If you are in the vicinity of Aerocity, New Delhi, you can head straight to our registration desk at Pride Plaza Hotel and we’d check you in!
TaiyangNews is back with its 2nd edition of the Solar Technology Conference India (STC.I) 2026, once again bringing together the who’s who of the Indian solar PV manufacturing industry along with international solar stakeholders interested in this burgeoning market.
