The Solar Manufacturers Association, on behalf of Indosolar, Jupiter Solar Power and Websol Energy System filed the dumping claims. There is sufficient prima facie evidence to start an investigation, according to India's Ministry of Commerce website. It was previously reported in pv magazine that Indian manufacturers have asked for duties as high as 200%.
The document on the Ministry's website states that the period of investigation proposed by the applicant was January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2011. It says, however, that "for enabling the Authority to make required analysis on the basis of more updated data, the Authority hereby determines the period of investigation as 1 January 2011 to 30 June 2012". This extends the period to 18 months. The injury investigation period will cover the time between April 2008 and March 2009, April 2009 and March 2010, April 2010 and March 2011, and the period of investigation.
Additionally the document says there is sufficient prima facie evidence to show that the domestic industry has suffered injury as a result of dumped imports from the countries under investigation. This also lent a hand to justify the anti-dumping investigation.
Bridge to India estimates, based on previous anti-dumping duty investigations in India, that it will take at least five to six months for any duty to be notified by the Ministry of Commerce and another three months at least for the implementation to be undertaken by the Ministry of Finance. So the duties are not likely to be expected before August 2013.
"Timing of the actual implementation is critical to assess the short-term impact of any such ruling," says Market Intelligence consultant Jasmeet Khurana, who works on project performance benchmarking, success factors for module sales, financing and bankability of projects in India.
The Indian consultancy believes an anti-dumping duty would not have an impact on the National Solar Mission projects as the domestic content ruling is highly likely to be extended to thin film modules in phase 2.
Bridge to India further forecasts a large number of orders to be placed and delivered just before the anti-dumping duties are implemented and it also does not expect equal anti-dumping duties to be imposed on all countries and suppliers under investigation. It will be rather difficult to enforce anti-dumping duties on module suppliers from the U.S., it says.
India crossed the 1GW mark in July this year with an installed capacity of 1,030.66 MW. The national solar mission in India requires crystalline PV projects to use domestic products. Thin film is currently exempt from this local content clause. In August this year, India's Centre for Science and Technology accused the US. PV manufacturers of "ruining the Indian domestic PV sector".
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