New Delhi, June 9 -- The West Asia conflict is starting to raise the cost of India's clean-energy transition. Industry executives said higher prices of copper, aluminium and a supply crunch in key petrochemical inputs have pushed up the solar power industry's costs by about 20%, with cell prices rising as much as 35%, squeezing project returns and increasing financing costs for project developers.

Solar cells make for about 40% of the overall cost of solar panels. As per industry estimates, the price of locally-produced solar cells is currently around Rs.12-14 per watt peak, from about Rs.10 in January.

This cost hit could impede India's goal of having 500GW non-fossil capacity by 2030, and hurt companies' return on investments (RoIs), ...