Mehreen Amin is studying in the fourth semester at the Government Degree College for Women in Zakura, Srinagar. Ms. Amin recently completed an intensive solar technical programme through a Kashmir-based training institute registered with the Skill Council for Green Jobs (SCGJ). When the institute was initially mobilising students in her community, she felt an instinctive urge to enrol.

“I wasn’t thinking about career benefits or the future of solar energy back then; my only interest was a hands-on desire to learn how to install the panels,” Ms. Amin recalls. “But now, I realise we will all need these skills in the future. I want to know exactly how to handle and operate this equipment myself.”

Ms. Amin’s training is part of the training of thousands of students and professionals to become “Suryamitras,” or certified solar photovoltaic (PV) technicians. This is a three-month-long programme from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, conducted by the National Institute of Solar Energy, to promote job creation in India’s solar industry.

Back in 2023, some of the Suryamitras were also considered potential candidates for working in the German solar industry.

Within a month of former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to India in February 2023, the Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW), or the German Solar Industry Association, and the SCGJ signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote skilled worker migration in the solar sector between India and Germany.

BSW is a trade body representing over 1,000 companies in the solar energy and battery storage sector in Germany. The SCGJ is a non-profit, autonomous, industry-led organisation associated with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

As per the MoU, the promise was to place at least 20 Indian Suryamitra electricians in Germany’s solar sector. Another objective was to promote skilled workers exchange to help address and accelerate skilled worker migration in solar between the two countries. By conservative estimates, Germany is facing a shortage of over 1,00,000 workers in the solar sector.

Three years since that MoU was signed, not a single Indian Suryamitra has migrated to Germany.

This is not the first time an official Indo-German agreement promising the transfer of skilled labour has failed to materialise. Two years earlier, the State of Maharashtra and the German State of Baden-Württemberg had signed an agreement on the transfer of skilled labour, promising to send 10,000 skilled workers in 34 trades from the Indian State to Germany. By December 2025, reports confirmed that not a single professional had migrated under the agreement.

Big promises

The BSW-Solar and SCGJ agreement repeats a pattern where not a single skilled professional migrated from India to Germany. It was during Chancellor Scholz’s 2023 visit to India that Germany increased its cap on professional visas for Indian professionals from 20,000 to 90,000.

According to a 2025 study by the German Economic Institute (IW), around 32,800 Indian professionals work in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields, a nine-fold increase since 2012.

A third of full-time Indian workers aged 25 to 44 are employed in the STEM sector. But the picture isn’t as rosy for non-STEM sectors, especially in areas where vocational training is a must — such as the solar industry.

“Our understanding is that the primary objective of this initiative was to support domestic workforce training and skills development within India to meet the needs of its booming local market, rather than facilitating international placements,” noted David Wedepohl, managing director of International Affairs at BSW Solar and also a signatory of the MoU.

As per BSW Solar, they were not operationally involved in the training programme.

The signatory from the SCGJ, Arpit Sharma, noted that the Suryamitras were already trained under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy scheme, and that the idea of the partnership was to upskill them in German technical standards and provide German-language courses.

“Unfortunately, no candidates were upskilled during the tenure, and no funds were provided to the SCGJ for any task,” noted Mr. Sharma.

According to Mr. Wedepohl, throughout the entire solar value chain, there is a particular demand for skilled workers in building electrical systems, such as DC assembly, AC installation, PV planning and construction management for the PV sector.

According to a 2024 study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, only 18% of companies were actively recruiting workers from abroad, even though 70% were facing a worker shortage.

The reason — language and bureaucratic hurdles such as recognition of professional qualifications. In vocational fields, German companies are strict about on-the-job practical knowledge.

As per Mr. Wedepohl, “The aim was to identify the already trained Suryamitras, which were supported by the National Institute of Solar Energy and if needed, upskill them to German standards.”

Jana Fingerhut, Senior Project Manager (Sustainable Social Market Economy) at Bertelsmann Foundation, notes that German companies are strict about the accreditation of certain professions in addition to language proficiency.

“The accreditation process can cause delays. The government is also cutting down on language and integration courses, which makes it even harder for many qualified people to enter the German job market. We hope that changes in the future,” noted Ms. Fingerhut.

Mr. Sharma noted that a list of 30 Suryamitras was shared with BSW Solar. “The candidates couldn’t make it through the upskilling programme as the German migration laws changed,” said Mr. Sharma.

Speaking to various other students, such as Ms. Amin, it also emerged that many trainees are not enrolling with the objective of building careers in the solar sector. Some trainees said they enrolled for the stipend associated with the programme, while others did it while being engaged in a different occupation.

It emerged that institutes are assigned enrolment targets but receive little guidance on how to identify or recruit candidates genuinely interested in green-sector jobs. As a result, the emphasis often shifts from attracting motivated trainees to simply filling seats.

Structural roadblocks

One thing both sides agree on is the changes to migration frameworks on the German side that further complicated matters.

“When the partnership was originally formed, labour shortages and market conditions in Germany differed from today. The German market grew by roughly 100% between 2022 and 2023. The cooperation provided a valuable opportunity to better understand the Indian solar sector and to explore whether labour mobility between the two countries could be feasible in the future,” said Mr. Wedepohl.

According to a 2026 report from the Bertelsmann Foundation, the number of people employed in Germany’s renewable energy sector reached a record high of 4,36,000 in 2025, a sub-4% increase over 2023. The report notes that the current federal government’s energy policy changes could put thousands of jobs in the sector at risk.

“The previous government placed a strong emphasis on expanding renewable energy and implemented this through new, ambitious expansion targets and faster approval procedures for renewable energy installations. Under the current federal government, a political shift appears to be emerging that could slow down the expansion of renewable energy. However, this is not yet 100% certain, as four energy-sector laws are currently being developed. The initial draft laws, however, suggest that they could lead to lower investment in renewable energy and, as a result, a reduction in jobs,” said Ms. Fingerhut.

In March 2026, Germany’s Economy Minister, Katherina Reiche, discontinued state subsidies for rooftop solar installations up to 25 kW, citing a drop in photovoltaic prices.

“This cut would mean that fewer people have an incentive to install solar panels, which could have a negative impact on investment and, in turn, on employment in the solar industry,” noted Ms. Fingerhut.

At the moment, the BSW and SCGJ partnership focuses on ongoing discussions around skill development for manufacturing and industrial workers across the solar value chain.

“Continued cooperation between governments, industry stakeholders, and training institutions remains important to align qualifications with actual labour market needs,” said Mr. Wedepohl.

(This article is part of the India-Germany Climate and Energy Journalism Programme organised by Clean Energy Wire, supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung)

Represesntational image. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A U.S. bribery indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is linked to one contract of Adani Green Energy comprising some 10% of its business, and none of the conglomerate’s other companies are accused of wrongdoing, the group’s CFO said on Saturday (November 23, 2024).

On Wednesday (November 20, 2024), Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest men, and seven others were indicted for fraud by U.S. prosecutors over their alleged roles in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure power-supply deals.

Adani Group has denied the allegations calling them “baseless”.

Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh sought to defend the allegations on Saturday (November 23, 2024) saying none of Adani’s 11 public companies “are subject to indictment” or “are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing”.

The allegations in the U.S. indictment relates to “one contract of Adani Green which is roughly 10% of overall business of Adani Green”, Mr. Singh said on X, adding the group will share more details at a later point.

Clean green hydrogen energy generation.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Underlining a commitment to accelerate the Indian economy’s transition to one powered by green energy, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech on Wednesday mentioned a slew of schemes aimed at promoting clean energy and sustainable living.

Green energy was among the ‘Saptarishi’ or seven guiding lights Ms. Sitharaman mentioned in her address that would steer India through ‘Amrit Kaal’ (next 25 years).

She said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had earmarked ₹35,000 crore for “priority capital investment”, though neither her speech nor the Budget documents provided more clarity on it.

Following up on the government’s recent announcement of giving a push to ‘green hydrogen’ and promoting renewable energy projects, the Minister said battery energy storage systems with a capacity of 4,000 megawatt hours will be “supported” with viability gap funding to encourage investment.

The Budget also waived customs duty on capital goods and machinery for lithium-ion battery manufacturing. The move is expected to make electric vehicles and storage systems cheaper.

Boost for solar projects

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has received a budgetary allocation of ₹10,222 crore, a 45% hike from the ₹7,033 crore it expects to spend in the current financial year. The most significant hikes in the Ministry’s programmes are for ‘off-grid’ solar projects, on which the government is expected to spend ₹61 crore in the current fiscal but has budgeted ₹360 crore for the coming financial year.

India had a target of installing 100 gigawatt (GW) of solar power projects by 2022 but has only installed 63 GW. Off-grid solar projects constitute less than 5% of the target. The allocation for solar power expected to be supplied to the grid has been raised to ₹4,970 crore, up from the ₹3,469 crore expected to be spent by March 2023. The National Green Hydrogen Mission – a ₹19,000-crore programme to produce, use and supply hydrogen from renewable energy sources – has been allotted ₹297 crore.

3 key measures

“For the budget allocation of ₹35,000 crore (about $4 billion) to start catalysing the nearly $30 billion in energy transition finance required annually by India for its net zero future, three types of measures will be needed: risk guarantees to reduce the cost of capital for low-carbon investments in the country; demand aggregation measures as has been done for LED lighting and electric buses; and viability gap financing for hydrogen electrolysers and offshore wind as announced for battery storage,” Ulka Kelkar, director, World Resources Institute, said in a statement.

Ms. Sitharaman also mentioned a ‘green credit’ programme to be notified under the Environment (Protection) Act. “This will incentivise environmentally sustainable and responsive actions by companies, individuals and local bodies, and help mobilise additional resources for such activities,” she said. “Building on India’s success in afforestation, the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes (MISHTI) will be taken up for mangrove plantation along the coastline and on salt pan lands,” she added.

An official in the Environment Ministry, who declined to be identified, told The Hindu that such a programme would be “sweeping” and involve multiple Ministries. “It’s still being finalised. However, it will involve several existing schemes that incentivise emission reductions by industries or the growing of plantations in barren land [that become stores of carbon over time].”

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