Tycoon Drives India’s Push Against China’s Solar-Energy Dominance

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By Megha Mandavia

(WSJ) — Gautam Adani, the billionaire founder of one of India’s biggest business conglo-merates, lies at the intersection of the country’s clean energy challenge to China.

Adani Group, which built its energy empire on coal, is setting up an entire solar supply chain starting with indigenous manufacturing of ingots, wafers, cells and panels, and soon polysilicon. It is also constructing a solar farm in Khavda, western India, that will cover an area over five times the size of Paris.

The group’s goal reflects India’s twin aims of aggressively chasing renewable-energy tar-gets while reducing dependence on Chinese imports, goals that are often in conflict with each other.

India wants to install 500 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity by 2030, but it is only two-fifths of the way there. Solar makes up nearly half of the country’s renewable mix. Although India has managed to start building solar panels within its borders, the raw ma-terials are mainly imported from China.