Budget lists steps to make India solar powerhouse without China’s help

India is pressing ahead with plans to curb reliance on China, the dominant producer of solar power equipment, even as it seeks to add huge volumes of renewable energy.

A pair of measures in Tuesday’s budget will help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to extend his government’s made-in-India campaign to the clean power sector, in which about 80% of all solar hardware is imported from the nation’s northern neighbor.

Grants of Rs 19,500 crore ($2.6 billion) are being added to spur local equipment production, while there’ll also be a 40% tax on imports of solar modules and 25% on cells from the next fiscal year.

India, the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, plans to more than quadruple its renewable power generation capacity to 450 gigawatts by 2030, including 280 gigawatts of solar.