Mercom Capital Group, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, recently announced that it will lower the solar installation forecast for India if anti-dumping duties are imposed by the government on solar cells and modules. The firm had previously forecasted solar installation of 1 GW in 2014 for the country.

Cautiously reiterating its earlier installation forecast, the firm pointed out that imposition of anti-dumping duty would adversely impact the solar sector.

“For a sector that hasn’t grown a lot since 2012, imposition of an anti-dumping duty will be detrimental, increase uncertainty, and raise solar power prices. Moreover, anti-dumping duties will hurt local manufacturing as higher component costs will make project economics unworkable, freezing project development activity,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Mercom Capital Group.

The country’s solar installations so far this year total 444 MW. Mercom has been consistently opposing the imposition of anti-dumping duty on solar cells and modules.

The firm said that as per information received from its sources, the Ministry of Commerce revived the anti-dumping case even as the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy continued to rightly insist against imposition of anti-dumping duty for a young and fragile sector.

The probe by Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties – Ministry of Commerce has found evidence of dumping of solar cells and modules by manufacturers from China, US, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Mercom said that several manufacturers who had earlier supported anti-dumping investigations were now opposed to the imposition of anti-dumping duty.

“They see the harm that will be done – choking project development by increasing costs while the industry is still trying to find its legs. They now seem to understand that they would all benefit from a larger market,” it said.

The firm added that the local solar industry was hopeful the new government at the Centre would end the unpredictability prevailing in the sector.


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1 COMMENT

  1. It is nice that India is moving towards solar power for producing electricity as we know that India’s population is increasing and there are number of people who are not getting electricity at there home and India is rich in solar energy so it is good to have solar power plants here. There are several companies taking these steps in installing solar plants like RaysExperts etc and we all should help them and appreciate them in any way we can.

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