Growing demand for solar equipment in Africa, island countries is an opportunity for Indian manufacturers

International Solar Alliance (ISA) Director General Ashish Khanna has described Africa and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as big markets for Indian manufacturers of solar equipment.

He projected a manifold increase in Africa’s solar capacity, which currently stands at 1 GW (except South Africa and Egypt), stating that Africa would need one million solar pumps in the next five to ten years.

Sources told CNBC-TV18’s Abhimanyu Sharma that ISA’s country partnership strategies will provide a platform for competing Indian solar manufacturers to gain access to global markets. The 8th ISA Assembly will be held in New Delhi from 27 to 30 October.

In July 2025, government sources told CNBC TV18 that while the cost of Indian-made solar modules was falling, the cost of imported Chinese solar modules was falling rapidly. Emphasizing the need to boost efficiency of Indian manufacturers to reduce manufacturing costs as well as tackle dumping of cheap, imported solar equipment, government sources had pointed out that there would be a need for policy coherence as “isolation from China will not happen overnight”.

While the import volume of solar modules has declined significantly over the past three years, the cost of domestic modules is still higher than that of China, with the price difference between Chinese modules and Indian modules reducing from 42 cents to about seven to eight cents.

It was also revealed that India was looking at new export prospects to the US, Middle East after the decline in solar module market in Europe due to falling power price. Highlighting that ongoing work is underway to address export bottlenecks, while India has engaged with the US-India Business Council (USIBC) to advocate for solar module exports, government sources had pointed out that a large, growing domestic market is ensuring no major dependence on exports for solar modules.