India’s one of the largest Solar Grade Polysilicon Manufacturing plants is being constructed in Chhattisgarh

Incomplete Supply Chain

The construction of this plant is a major step in making India Self Reliant in the Solar sector.  India is running towards an ambitious goal of setting up 100GW installed Solar capacity by 2022. This is in accordance with India’s pledge to meet 40% of its total Energy demand  from renewable sources, made in the Paris Agreement. Though the  domestic solar panel manufacturers are ramping up their production, they still meet only 20% of the total demand. The rest of the Solar panels are imported from China due its low cost. The increased import is despite the safeguard duty imposed by the government, a step aimed to protect domestic manufacturers. However, the entire supply chain for manufacturing Solar panels is yet to be created in India. The Supply chain for Solar panel manufacturing is as follows. Production of pure silicon from sand >> Production of solar grade ingots >> Solar wafers manufacturing >> Solar module assembly. So far India does only Wafer manufacturing and Solar Module assembly o, While the other two manufacturing processes are not done in India as it is considered to be capital-intensive. 

Ingot manufacturing facility

Plant details

Only a few companies are striving towards achieving this. Lanco infratech limited is one among them which is building India’s one of the largest Solar ingot manufacturing plants in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, India. The Fluor Corporation has undertaken this project to build for Lanco Solar Private Limited. Fluor Corporation is an American multinational company that provides engineering, procurement and construction services. It is also the company which built one of the world’s largest polysilicon production facilities in Xinyu City, People’s Republic of China (PRC). Lanco Solar Private Limited is a subsidiary of Lanco Infratech Limited. Lanco Infratech limited is an Indian conglomerate involved in construction, power, real estate, and several other segments.

According to the recent report by Lanco, the plant is spread across 250 acres acquired on a 99-year lease. In that, the ingot manufacturing plant is spread across 50 acres while the wafer manufacturing plant covers 12 acres and the area of the module assembly plant is 2700 square meter. Most manufacturing processes are done in a single plant. 

Source:- http://www.lancogroup.com/pdf/IRP/Solar/LSPL_Teaser.pdf