By Sethuraman N R and Yagnoseni Das
(Reuters) -Saatvik Green Energy, one of India’s biggest solar module makers by capacity, said on Thursday it is shunning the once-promising U.S. export market as it is no longer “worth the risk” due to the thorny tariff issue.
The United States is India’s top overseas market, accounting for 90% of module exports, according to industry officials and analysts.
“We want to be risk-free and focus on the domestic market,” said CEO Prashant Mathur in a press conference. The company said on its initial public offering draft filing that it gets a portion of its revenue from exports to the U.S., but has not revealed how much.
Saatvik Green Energy has joined major industry players in India in expanding their renewable energy capacity recently, both with an eye on exports and as the South Asian country targets 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030.
However, U.S. tariffs of up to 50% on solar panel shipments from India and potential anti-dumping duties will pile on to the existing surplus in India next year as domestic project bidding slows, industry officials and analysts say.
Saatvik, which currently has a solar cell manufacturing capacity of 3.8 GW, plans to reach 4.8 GW by April 2027. Separately, it also plans to add 4 GW of solar module capacity by April 2026.
Mathur said the company is seeing extensive domestic demand as many projects that were delayed due to land, transmission and tariff issues are being built now.
We expect this demand to continue for the next few years, he added.
(Reporting by Sethuraman NR in New Delhi, Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar and Janane Venkatraman)
