India’s solar expansion accelerates amid policy shifts and ecological safeguards

Dilip Buildcon, Sunbridge Solar Power, Landsmill Industries, Purshotam Profiles, Ceigall India and 77 other firms emerged as the principal winners in Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam Limited’s (MPUVNL) recent auction to allocate capacity under Component C of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) programme. According to Mercom India, the tendered 4.3 GW package was largely awarded but only 4.01 GW was finally allocated, reflecting continued strong interest from a broad mix of developers while leaving a small portion of capacity unawarded.

The MPUVNL auction is one of several large-scale procurement moves this year as India accelerates its utility-scale solar roll-out. Capital market reporting indicates Dilip Buildcon was selected for a substantial slice of the award, winning 1,363.55 MW AC under the Non-DCR category to build grid-connected PV plants for feeder solarisation under PM-KUSUM-C, with power to be sold to Madhya Pradesh Power Management Company for 25 years. Smaller project wins in the state include a 16 MW rooftop contract won by Servotech Renewable Power Systems from the state renewable agency, underscoring that developers are securing both ground-mount and distributed generation work. Mercom India separately reported that Amp Energy, NHDC and SJVN won the 600 MW floating solar auction for the Omkareshwar reservoir run by Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited, signalling renewed interest in reservoir-based capacity that can complement land-based deployment.

Policy and trade actions are reshaping the supply and cost environment for these projects. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has expanded the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM), adding 23,119 MW of module capacity and bringing the cumulative ALMM-registered module manufacturing capacity to 144,841 MW, according to Mercom India. New entrants cited by the report include Macwin Solar Energy, Eastman Green Technologies, Frontier Energy, ZNShine Solarworld (Solarworld Energy Solutions), Green Valley Motors and Inox Solar, which together add a mix of domestic module capacity to the market. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance has extended the countervailing duty on imports of textured tempered solar glass from Malaysia until 8 June 2026, maintaining a trade protection measure originally imposed in March 2021 after findings it harmed domestic manufacturers.

Those manufacturing, trade and procurement moves are unfolding against a shifting system-level requirement: India’s push to scale solar is increasingly being balanced with the need for reliable, round-the-clock power. Industry data from Mercom India’s Q3 2025 India Solar Market Update shows the country added 26.6 GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of 2025, a 53.7% year-on-year rise from 17.3 GW in the equivalent period of 2024. Large-scale projects accounted for 81.5% of that new capacity, with rooftop installations contributing 18.5%. The report also notes that around 7.7 GW of utility-scale tenders were issued in 2025 to date, while open access continued to expand rapidly, 6.1 GW of open access capacity was added in the first nine months of 2025, up 13.4% year-on-year, driven by commercial and industrial consumers seeking to decarbonise operations and manage rising grid tariffs.

Grid integration and ecological constraints are influencing where and how new lines and plants get built. In a ruling that seeks to reconcile conservation and clean-energy objectives, the Supreme Court ordered a two-year roadmap to underground and reroute power lines in Rajasthan and Gujarat to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, accepting several recommendations from an expert committee of wildlife and power-sector specialists. The judgment will require adjustments to transmission planning and could add costs or delivery lead times for projects in the affected regions, reinforcing the need for developers and system planners to build ecological mitigation into project timelines and budgets.

At the state level, institutional reforms are also underway. Telangana has issued modalities for a third distribution company (DISCOM), to be operational from 1 April 2026 following cabinet approval in November 2025. The move, enabled by the Electricity Act 2003, permits multiple licensees to operate in the same area and could introduce competitive dynamics in the state’s retail supply market, with potential implications for offtake agreements, open-access volumes and industrial procurement strategies.

For industrial decarbonisation stakeholders, the MPUVNL auction and associated developments provide several takeaways. The auction demonstrates continuing developer appetite for large-scale, state-backed tenders and highlights the ongoing role of national programmes such as PM-KUSUM in driving distributed and feeder-level solar deployment. The ALMM expansion signals increased domestic module capacity that may improve supply security for upcoming projects, while the extended countervailing duty on solar glass imports keeps a degree of protection for domestic upstream producers, factors that together will influence module and glass availability, pricing and procurement strategies for the medium term. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s ruling on transmission routing and the emergence of new DISCOM frameworks exemplify non-market risks, environmental, regulatory and institutional, that planners and financiers must factor into project development, grid integration and long-term offtake modelling.