First Solar, an American maker of thin-film solar modules, will invest another $150 million in its India manufacturing, and its chief executive used the announcement to ask the government for steady rules.
Mark Widmar, First Solar’s chief executive, announced the money at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit 2026 in New Delhi, in northern India, according to The Hindu BusinessLine. The company has already put $700 million into India. Widmar said its total there will approach $1 billion over the next couple of years.
Widmar tied that pace of investment to policy. The government, he said, has to stay committed to what it announces, and he singled out the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers for solar modules and cells. “The fidelity of those commitments and announcements has to stay true because if things move, things change, then it will compromise the speed at which investments will be made,” Widmar said. Investors need certainty before they commit large sums to factories, he said, and “policy certainty and clarity, I think, is absolutely critical.”
Sujoy Ghosh, country managing director of First Solar India, said the $150 million investment is already under way. It will upgrade the company’s manufacturing process to make more advanced thin-film modules.
Ghosh said the upgraded modules lose less power as they heat up. Their temperature coefficient is minus 0.22 percent per degree Celsius, compared with approximately minus 0.35 percent for mono-PERC modules, a common silicon design. He also said First Solar modules keep 98 percent of their original output after twenty-five years, compared with approximately 88 percent for the best crystalline silicon modules. Ghosh said the company’s manufacturing in India does not depend on imported silicon or the conventional silicon supply chain.
For American manufacturers weighing India, the signal is plain. A company with $700 million already invested is still adding to it, and it is telling the government what it needs to keep going: rules that hold still.
