The country's largest solar cell manufacturing plant will be built in India

Indian conglomerate Adani and American company SunEdisson have signed an agreement to create a joint venture that will build India's largest solar panel plant. The amount of investment in the project will be about $4 billion.

Photo: Viktor Korotaev, Kommersant / buy photo

Indian conglomerate Adani announced on Sunday that it had signed a letter of intent with the American company SunEdison to create a joint venture that would build a solar panel plant in India. The parties intend to invest about $4 billion in this project.

The new plant will be located in Mandra, Gujarat, and will be the largest in India. The companies plan to complete construction within three to four years. It will produce solar panels that will directly convert sunlight into electricity. Typically, solar energy in India costs 50% more than traditional energy, which is overwhelmingly coal-based. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi intends to reduce the country's dependence on the coal industry by focusing all efforts on producing energy from renewable sources.

“This facility will produce extremely low-cost solar panels that will allow us to produce electricity so cost-effectively that it can compete directly with fossil fuels without subsidies or incentives,” said SunEdison CEO Ahmad Chatila.

Kirill Sarkhanyants

How the WTO and the US argued about tariffs on solar panels

In July 2014, the World Trade Organization said the United States had improperly imposed higher import tariffs on some steel and solar panels from India and China. The Americans accused Asian manufacturers of receiving hidden subsidies from their governments, but WTO experts admitted that the US position was wrong. Read more

$4 billion invested in solar