Tata Power’s ₹6,675 Crore Bet on Solar Self-Reliance in Odisha

Tata Power has picked Gopalpur, Odisha, over a rival site in Andhra Pradesh for its 10 gigawatt (GW) solar ingot and wafer plant. The ₹6,675 crore project, about $742 million, is one of India’s biggest single bets yet on solar manufacturing’s most underbuilt segment.

Chief executive Praveer Sinha confirmed the choice to The Economic Times (ET) on Monday, crediting Odisha’s incentives and cheaper power. A new federal mandate will require Indian solar projects to buy domestically made wafers within two years, and Tata Power’s first production phase is scheduled to land just before it takes effect.

A Coastal Plot Tips the Balance

Tata Power first confirmed it was scouting a 10 GW ingot and wafer site in November 2025, when it was weighing Gopalpur against Cuttack, both in Odisha. Andhra Pradesh entered the picture later, with some reports naming Nellore as a possible location before Monday’s confirmation settled the question in Odisha’s favor.

Ultimately based on the type of incentives and the type of support that is being provided in terms of lower costs of power and other benefits, it was decided that we will set up the plant in Odisha.

Sinha said that to ET on Monday, after Tata Power reported its first-quarter results for the current fiscal year.

Gopalpur’s appeal went beyond subsidies. Tata Steel is already developing a special economic zone there, and the land needed for the wafer plant had already been bought and cleared. Sinha said the site let the company move fast because the land “had already been acquired and was available, allowing us to move ahead with the project quickly.”

The project sits formally under Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd, the listed company’s renewable arm, according to reporting on the state’s cabinet approval. That approval, reported at close to ₹10,000 crore once a linked 5 GW solar cell line at the same site is counted in, carried incentives on top of the free hand on land:

• Capital subsidy: 30% of the project’s investment cost
• Electricity duty waiver: a full waiver running 20 years
• Power tariff subsidy: ₹2 off every unit consumed
• Ready land: the Gopalpur site, pre-cleared through Tata Steel’s economic zone

Those terms, Outlook Business reported, were enough to beat whatever Andhra Pradesh had on the table.

India’s Missing Manufacturing Link

The bet only makes sense against how lopsided India’s solar supply chain already is. The country makes plenty of finished panels but almost none of the raw material inside them.

India still imports about 98% of its solar wafers and effectively all of its polysilicon, pv magazine reported this month. Domestic ingot and wafer capacity totals roughly 2 GW nationally, a fraction of what Tata Power alone is now planning to build in Odisha.

Tata Power’s plant alone would add roughly five times the country’s existing ingot and wafer capacity in a single project. That is the gap the company is racing to fill before anyone else does.

A Deadline Written Into the Mandate

That gap now carries a government deadline. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, or MNRE, expanded its approved manufacturers list to cover ingots and wafers in March 2026, under a new List-III category. From June 1, 2028, every solar project in India, including rooftop and open-access installations, will need wafers made by a listed domestic manufacturer.

The federal government backed a similarly large incentive push in semiconductors too, committing ₹2.19 lakh crore across seven chip projects earlier this year. Solar wafers are now getting the same treatment: guaranteed demand paired with a hard cutoff date.

Line up the dates and Tata Power’s construction schedule reads like a wager that the mandate holds:

1. November 2025: ET first reports Tata Power scouting Gopalpur and Cuttack in Odisha for the plant.
2. March 2026: MNRE creates ALMM List-III, setting a domestic-sourcing deadline for wafers.
3. July 2026: Sinha confirms Odisha, not Andhra Pradesh, has won the project.
4. January 2028: The plant’s first 5 GW phase is due to start production.
5. June 2028: The ALMM wafer mandate takes effect nationwide.
6. Around mid-2028: A second 5 GW phase is due to follow, about six months after the first.

Phase one output should reach the market roughly five months before the mandate arrives. Phase two follows soon after it does.

What Did Andhra Pradesh Lose?

Andhra Pradesh loses a ₹6,675 crore plant and the jobs and tax base that come with it, though the project was never guaranteed to it. Tata Power had weighed a Nellore site before choosing Gopalpur once Odisha’s incentives and ready land proved more competitive.

The state has lost other marquee investments in recent years too. A ₹70,000 crore data-and-solar project and a ₹15,000 crore Reliance electronics plant both shifted elsewhere, Deccan Herald reported, part of a run of manufacturers picking rival states over Andhra Pradesh.

Odisha, meanwhile, has been actively courting solar manufacturers beyond Tata Power, trade publication Saur Energy has reported, positioning its coastline and port access as an advantage for an export-oriented industry.

Profit Climbs, Margins Slip

The manufacturing bet arrives alongside a mixed quarter for Tata Power’s core business. Consolidated net profit for the June quarter, the first of fiscal year 2027, rose 11% to ₹1,401 crore from ₹1,262 crore a year earlier.

• Net profit: ₹1,401 crore, up 11% from ₹1,262 crore a year earlier
• Revenue: ₹19,051.26 crore, up 5.6% from ₹18,035.07 crore
• EBITDA: ₹4,013 crore, down 3% year on year

Revenue climbed on higher operating income, but EBITDA slipped, a sign that costs are rising faster than sales even as the topline grows. The company had also set a June 23 record date for its latest dividend, alongside HUL, Asian Paints and Dalmia Bharat, ahead of Monday’s manufacturing news.

A Second Bet on Nuclear Power

Tata Power’s other long-horizon wager this year is nuclear power. Sinha said the company is in advanced talks to finalize land for projects across Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Gujarat, with soil and geotechnical testing already underway at some sites. A final decision is expected within six to eight months.

Tata Power is also weighing reactor size with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, or NPCIL, which runs the country’s commercial reactor fleet according to the industry profile tracking India’s nuclear buildout. The options are compact 220 megawatt (MW) units, which typically come in pairs, or a standard 700 MW design.

The smaller option lines up with a national program called Bharat Small Reactors:

• Bharat Small Reactors – compact 220 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors designed by NPCIL and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for captive industrial power, separate from India’s larger grid reactors

Tata was one of six companies that told NPCIL they were interested in financing and building such reactors under a 2024 proposal process, World Nuclear News reported. Those six firms have together identified 16 possible sites across six states, including three in Odisha and four in Madhya Pradesh.

The Overcapacity Question Behind the Bet

India’s module and cell segments face a different problem: too much capacity, not too little. Credit rating agency ICRA has warned of overcapacity building up in solar module manufacturing, even as the ingot and wafer segment Tata Power is entering stays scarce.

The logic behind Tata Power’s bet is simple: take the scarce end of the supply chain, right as regulation is about to make that scarcity pay off. But India has never run ingot and wafer production at this scale before. The country’s entire existing base is a fifth the size of the Gopalpur project alone.

Getting a technically demanding process running on schedule by January 2028 is a different challenge than adding another module line. The first phase online date will be the first real test of whether Tata Power’s bet on Odisha, and on India’s ability to build wafers at scale, pays off.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a solar ingot and a solar wafer?

A solar ingot is a solid cylindrical block of purified silicon, grown or cast in a furnace. A wafer is a thin slice cut from that ingot, thin enough to later become a solar cell once processed and wired into a panel. Tata Power’s Gopalpur plant covers both steps, ingot growth and wafer slicing, rather than just one.

Why does India rely so heavily on Chinese solar wafers?

India built out panel assembly and cell manufacturing first, backed by federal incentive schemes, but left the ingot and wafer step underdeveloped because it needs more capital and specialized furnace technology. China built that capacity years ago and still supplies about 98% of the wafers Indian manufacturers use, according to pv magazine.

What are Bharat Small Reactors, and why is Tata Power interested?

Bharat Small Reactors are compact 220 megawatt pressurised heavy water reactors designed by NPCIL and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for captive industrial power use. Tata Power is one of six companies NPCIL is working with under a 2024 proposal process, and those firms have together identified 16 possible sites across six states, World Nuclear News reported.

Which other Indian states are competing for solar manufacturing investment?

Odisha is one of several states now courting large-scale solar manufacturing beyond panel assembly, trade publication Saur Energy has reported, as manufacturers look for the mix of cheap power, tax breaks and coastal logistics that drew Tata Power to Gopalpur. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have also built up sizeable solar manufacturing bases under the federal PLI scheme.