India wants to dramatically expand its solar production capacity through 2028 but it faces a lack of skilled workers. Attracting talent from overseas and related industries is an option but policymakers could also follow the United States’ lead and work on training schemes with Chinese manufacturers.
Analysts at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) say India could become the world’s second-largest solar manufacturer by 2026, with an annual module production capacity of 110 GW. That would be enough to make the vast nation self-sufficient and able to “aggressively” target the PV export market.
Between 2020 and 2023, India’s solar module production capacity more than doubled. The nation also hosts burgeoning PV cell, wafer, and polysilicon production industries, alongside manufacturing plants for solar glass and other photovoltaic bill-of-materials components.
Challenges remain, however. Production capacity for upstream solar materials such as polysilicon and wafers is not high enough to meet domestic demand, and local solar manufacturing equipment suppliers are few and far between, so India relies heavily on imports for its production lines. That might not be the case if the country had more skilled workers ready to deploy specialized manufacturing technology.
Ask anyone involved with Indian solar and they will mention workforce skills gaps as one of the biggest barriers to progress. Bangalore-based talent search firm WalkWater Talent Advisors recently released a report highlighting the severe shortage of leadership within the renewable energy sector.
The firm’s director, Kunal Girap, told pv magazine that “there is a great market out there, in terms of opportunities, and there are plenty of organizations who want to cater to those opportunities. However, the talent pool that is required by the organizations, to capitalize on the opportunities in the market, seems to be a challenge.”
The solar market has been moving faster than training capabilities can cater for. As a result, there is a surplus of young talent with high ambitions and higher expectations, but a lack of experienced leaders to mold all that potential into something useful.
“Now, as more and more companies are entering into the space because of the opportunities present in the market, the companies seem to be hunting for the same set of people that are available because they are looking at ready-made talent,” said Girap. “And this is leading to the acute shortage of leadership talent, and also talent in certain specific areas within the renewable energy industry, which, in turn, causes backlogs in areas such as land acquisition or design engineering or even connectivity to the grid.”
Lateral thinking
Citing the recommendations made in the WalkWater report, Girap said companies must address the “limited talent pool” by thinking more creatively. They could, for example, attract talent from what he called “allied industries,” such as electrical engineering, oil and gas, and automotive.
Solar companies could also go directly to schools and colleges and hire talent very early on. That approach takes time and a lot of resources, and businesses are typically less willing to make that kind of investment. Whichever road solar employers take, the tried and tested route is not cutting it, if India wants to live up to its PV potential.
“Creatively looking at talent is very, very important and [so is] looking at it with a very open mind, in terms of transitioning talent from outside,” added Girap. “We anticipate this frenzy of activity will settle down in the next three to four years, but that is a very long time.” In the meantime, the market is “completely lopsided towards the employees” who are, Girap said, “demanding unrealistic compensation” and not demonstrating much flexibility.
“People are looking at [an increase in] compensation rates in the region of 50%, 60%, 70%, which is very unlikely,” said the WalkWater director. “If you look at traditional industries like oil and gas power, which is fossil fuel, or the other oil and gas industries, the increments in compensation for changing jobs within the industry are 15% to 20%.”
Energy think tank IEEFA has called for better allocation of financing for clean energy training schemes, following the release of the most recent Indian national budget in July 2024. “The private sector and academia have to work together with the government for real results,” wrote the organization.
Girap agreed, but he said the Indian government is doing a good job with its efforts on skills development. In his view, Indian solar is mostly project-led, rather than focusing on manufacturing. The country doesn’t have anything like the sort of solar technological capability as China. However, as pv magazine’s Valerie Thompson reports this month (see pp. 52-55), that picture is changing. India’s wafer, ingot, and cell production capacity is on the uptick and those factories also require skilled workers.
“Creatively looking at talent is very, very important and so is looking at it with a very open mind, in terms of transitioning talent from the outside”
Kunal Girap,
WalkWater Talent Advisors
Squeezing out China
Like India, the United States has been ramping up its PV manufacturing capacity over recent months and years. Sitting geographically between the two solar hopefuls is their major rival, China, which hosts the lion’s share of PV manufacturing capacity worldwide. Sylvia Leyva Martinez, an analyst for Wood Mackenzie, said many American manufacturers are bringing in skilled people from China to train their workers in the latest solar manufacturing techniques and equipment.
“My understanding is they’re bringing people over not to stay full time, throughout the operation of the factory, but just throughout the ramp-up period and then it can be only fully trained US workers that can continue with the operation of the factory,” said Martinez.
Could India do something similar? “Is there a possibility that we can attract talent from [China and the United States] to India?” asked Girap. “Definitely yes, because they would be coming from an already well-developed market, particularly from a technology standpoint, they are more advanced and they can come here and put that technology to good use building the Indian manufacturing capability and capacity.”
Girap said WalkWater is eager to hear from Indian nationals who left the country to study and may wish to return to work in renewables manufacturing – especially in “highly specialized” subsectors such as cell production.
To attract such talent successfully, companies will need good benefits packages. In the United States, solar employers are losing workers to other, unrelated sectors that can offer better working conditions, in many cases.
“It’s very important to have competitive offers, not only for the clients but for the workers as well – particularly in manufacturing,” said Martinez. “It’s not all about grand gestures. It can be the smallest thing; we visited a factory a few weeks ago and one of the things the CEO was showing to us is that they gave anti-impact cushions to people who were working at standing stations, to make their working life easier.”
From an outsider’s perspective, such things appear relatively simple, but the reason there is a skills shortage in solar in the first place is the industry is under pressure. According to Martinez it can be difficult to distinguish whether American companies need more workers or more high-voltage equipment.
Planning roadblocks
Often, budgets can’t stretch to both. As in India, the United States is putting so much emphasis on growth that planning falls by the wayside and details get lost in the fray between different employers involved along the lifecycle of a solar project. The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was passed to stimulate domestic US manufacturing, has ended up causing hassles for many companies that are having to completely reevaluate labor costs on projects that began before the legislation passed into law.
“When the IRA passed, there was this new provision that if a project were to get the highest level of tax credits, they needed to prove that they were meeting minimum wage and apprenticeship requirements,” said Martinez. “That automatically increases the cost of labor, because if a developer was not using unions, for example, now they need to use them, because it’s mostly unions who have these apprenticeship requirements in place.”
Martinez said that “renegotiations” need to happen between the various groups that make solar happen – manufacturers, developers, and engineering, procurement, and construction service providers – to ensure that the post-IRA economic situation works for all involved.
From a broader perspective, the work that the industry does is not widely understood by the public. That can represent a challenge to attracting talent.
“Different organizations have different approaches toward workforce development but it all involves training people and making the work more public,” said Martinez. “Some developers have training in-house. Along with their development capabilities they also do training. That way, they are helping themselves, getting more workers, but they are helping the community in parallel.”
For both the United States and India, the months and years after September 2024 will be crucial. How their industries cope with the demands being placed on them will depend on the quality of the workforces they cultivate.
“It’s not going to be an easy transition,” said Girap. “It will be an interesting story over the next three to four years.”
Source: PV Magazine