Saatvik Green Energy chief executive officer Prashant Mathur said his company, one of the largest solar module producers in India, will not export product to the United States, reported Reuters.
Mathur said the U.S. is no longer “worth the risk” due to ongoing tariff enforcement that continues to intensify and alter supply chains.
The move to not ship product to the U.S. is significant, as the nation accounts for 90% of India’s module exports, said Reuters.
“We want to be risk-free and focus on the domestic market,” said Mathur.
Saatvik Green Energy said it will focus on India’s domestic market, where the country targets 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. While many projects were delayed in India due to land, transmission and tariff issue, these projects are being built now, leading to a resurgence in module demand, a trend Mansur said he expects to continue.
Saatvik currently operates 3.8 GW of solar cell manufacturing capacity, which is expected to reach 4.8 GW by 2027. It also plans to add 4 GW of solar module capacity by April 2026.
The United States during the second Trump Administration has applied heavy tariffs on imports from India, with some rates as high as 50%.
In August, the Department of Commerce launched an antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) investigation into solar suppliers from India. The investigation would seek to determine if businesses from China are trading in U.S. imports via businesses in third-party countries to evade import tariffs.
The investigations were launched after a petition filed by the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, which includes First Solar, Mission Solar Energy, and Qcells. The petition requested investigations into “illegal trade practices by largely Chinese-owned manufacturers operating in Laos and Indonesia, as well as companies headquartered in India.”
The Alliance claims it has found dumping margins of 213.96% for India.
Should rates like these be applied, challenges may arise for the U.S. supply of solar cells, said Clean Energy Associates (CEA). The U.S. industry produces only a fraction of what is needed to meet domestic cell demand and relies on imports for its module assembly factories.
“This is almost certainly going to shut off supply from these three countries, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for the U.S. solar market,” said Christian Roselund, senior analyst at CEA.
Currently, the U.S. imports about 2.3 GW from India, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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