Solar Jobs Is An Export Opportunity for India, And We Are Missing It

By almost all accounts, Europe needs 1 million solar professionals for meeting its installation targets by 2025. It barely has 800,000 skilled workers, leading to not just a skills shortage but also rising costs of installations. Industry bodies ranging from Solar Power Europe, to SEIA in the US have all flagged manpower as a key concern for meeting targets, hinting at a key trend of solar jobs. Add to that the growing manufacturing ambitions across all key markets, and you have a perfect recipe for a skills shortage that just can’t be filled domestically. From less than 20 GW till 2022, these markets including India are looking to add 140 GW of manufacturing between 2024 and 2028, across the solar supply chain, based on individual approvals given already.

Solar Power Europe has gone as far as advocating for integrating solar requirements in EU Immigration policies, besides encouraging intra-EU movement of skilled labour of course.

Keep in mind that even in India, solar jobs like in the manufacturing sector remain a huge challenge, with no possibility of relief for some time, as more and more plants start operations. The denial of visas to Chinese technicians has already been flagged as a major issue affecting timelines.

The picture is the same across the US, Australia, and the Middle East of course, all of whom have significant  ambitions to add solar capacity to 2030. India of course has its own challenges as usual, and is finding stop gap solutions for it as always.

Keep in mind that the manpower cost of installation remains the lowest in India for obvious reasons, as the rest are all developed markets with much higher minimum wage rates. EPC contractors we spoke to tell us that in India, the manpower cost in a rooftop installation of 3 KW is typically about 15-20% of total cost, less than half what you can expect in developed markets. Even these costs have been built in on the assumption that actual time spent on site for installation will be three days or less. Some more time is usually apportioned to coordination and follow ups with local discoms, and other paperwork related to applications, subsidies etc.

In Europe, from Germany to Spain to Switzerland, waiting times for a rooftop connection can stretch to 6 months in many cases, underlining the depth of the challenge being faced there. The US is heading for a similar situation. So bad is the situation that in surveys, solar customers have regularly cited trouble with their installer as the no. 1 cause for dissatisfaction. Many installers go out of business due to wrongly estimating the work or skill involved.

For India, this is possibly the time to reach out diplomatically, and create opportunities for solar technicians that can be trained here to consider working in these markets, especially the western markets, since a mechanism exists for workers from here to go to the middle east and return. A special dispensation of 2-5 year work visas that seemed such a possibility before the refugee crisis engulfed Europe post 2018, needs to be chased up as well if possible. Training to be a solar installer for a technical person is something that is being done in 3 weeks to three months here, depending on who you speak to. The opportunity of working and earning much better in western markets is bound to drive strong demand for training as well.

Either way, it indicates an opportunity to create a skilled workforce that will have opportunities domestically as well as beyond, helping the industry and country immensely.

The window of opportunity exists, and it is the government’s duty to ensure it is not missed.