India's Ministry of Finance has imposed a 15% duty on steel flat rolled products with a width of 600mm or more, other stainless steel bars and bars hot rolled into irregularly wound coils of other alloy steel. Also, to encourage indigenous manufacturing in India, the government has decided not to impose any duties on imports of raw materials used in steel production such as pulverized coal, coking coal and ferronickel.

The domestic steel price in India has been on an upward trend since last year, so the price of solar mounting products has gradually increased. India levies taxes on steel exports and lowers the prices of raw materials and coal, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the co-extrusion of steel in India and restrain the rise in steel prices.

Falling steel prices will in turn affect India's imports of solar mounts. Indian media believe that imposing a 15% tariff on steel exports can make Indian products less competitive in the international market, and more steel will remain in the Indian domestic market. For utility-scale PV projects, the use of steel structures can reduce material costs, while for rooftop projects, the use of aluminum is still the mainstay.

However, in the Indian photovoltaic market, utility-scale ground photovoltaic power plants are still the mainstream. A few years ago India set a target of 100GW of installed solar power by the end of 2022, and by the end of 2021 India is only halfway there. When subdivided into ground photovoltaic power plants and rooftop photovoltaics, the former is only 14 gigawatts away from reaching the goal. "Global Photovoltaic" predicts that India will add 18-20GW of photovoltaics in 2022. Under the circumstance that it is impossible to achieve the 100GW target, India can still strive to complete the installation target of ground photovoltaic power plants, which can also save some face for the government.