New DelhiUS-based solar module manufacturer First Solar is investing another $150 million in India, over and above the $700 million it has already invested, taking its cumulative investments in the country closer to the $1-billion mark.
Announcing this at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit (BRE Summit 2026) in New Delhi on Wednesday, First Solar Chief Executive Officer Mark Widmar stressed the importance of policy certainty to sustain the pace of investment in India’s solar manufacturing sector.
Widmar said the government needed to remain committed to its policy announcements, particularly those relating to the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) for solar modules and cells.
“The fidelity of those commitments and announcements has to stay true because if things move, things change, then it will compromise the speed at which investments will be made,” he said.
Investors needed certainty, especially when committing large amounts of capital to manufacturing facilities, he observed.
First Solar had initially invested $700 million in India and was now committing another $150 million. Over the next couple of years, the company’s cumulative investments would approach $1 billion, he said.
“Policy certainty and clarity, I think, is absolutely critical,” Widmar emphasised.
Elaborating on the additional investment, Sujoy Ghosh, Country Managing Director of First Solar India, told businessline that the $150-million investment was already underway and would be used to upgrade the manufacturing process to produce more advanced thin-film solar modules.
The upgraded modules would have a temperature coefficient of minus 0.22 per cent per degree Celsius, compared with around minus 0.35 per cent for mono-PERC modules and minus 0.4 per cent for TOPCon modules, Ghosh said.
The temperature coefficient indicates how much a solar module’s power output falls as its temperature rises above the standard testing temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. A lower coefficient means the module loses less output in hot conditions, giving it an advantage in a country such as India, where solar panels operate at elevated temperatures, especially in Rajasthan, home to most of India’s solar capacity, for much of the year.
Ghosh also pointed to the superior long-term performance of First Solar’s modules, saying that after 25 years they would retain 98 per cent of their original energy-producing capability, compared with around 88 per cent for the best crystalline silicon modules.
This, he said, would translate into higher electricity generation over the lifetime of a solar project.
Unlike conventional solar modules, which use crystalline silicon cells, First Solar manufactures thin-film modules using cadmium telluride (CdTe), a semiconductor material deposited as a thin coating on a glass substrate.
The manufacturing process is fundamentally different from that of mono-PERC and TOPCon modules, which require silicon wafers and involve multiple processing steps to convert them into solar cells.
First Solar’s technology does not require polysilicon, ingots or wafers, insulating it from the silicon supply chain on which most solar module manufacturers depend.
Ghosh said the company’s Indian manufacturing operations did not depend on imported silicon or the conventional crystalline silicon supply chain.
The latest investment further underscores First Solar’s commitment to its Indian manufacturing operations, even as the company seeks greater policy predictability to support long-term investments in advanced solar technologies.
Published on November 6, 2026
