Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 announced the allocation of an additional Rs 19,500 crore under the scheme.

The pending list of 15 solar manufacturers who participated in the initial bidding for production linked incentives (PLI) scheme for solar, is expected to be cleared in the next two months’ time, a senior official told FE.

In December 2021, the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) through its implementation agency, IREDA, shortlisted three companies — Reliance New Energy Solar, Shirdi Sai Electricals and Adani Infrastructure — with a committment to set up 12 GW capacity against an initial allocation of Rs 4,500 crore under the PLI scheme. The remaining 15 participants with total committment to set up 40 GW capacity were kept in a waiting list with promise to utilise their services once additional allocation comes to the scheme.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 announced the allocation of an additional Rs 19,500 crore under the scheme to accommodate the remaining manufacturers.

“The proposal will be taken to the Cabinet for approval soon, after that, the letter of award will be issued to the manufacturers in the bucket list. It will take around two months time to award the letters to all the remaining bidders,” the official said.

Other companies in the fray include: Tata Power Solar, Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar, FS India Solar, Premier Energies, Emvee, Larsen &Toubro, Megha Engineering, ReNew Solar, Avaada & Acme.

According to industry officials, stakeholders are expecting IREDA, to expedite and issue letters of award to balance 15 companies as many of these have already acquired land and some have even done the land development work. Many players have done the basic construction in anticipation of the award pending for the last three months.

Hitesh Doshi, chairman & managing director of Waaree Energies, which has applied for 4GW capacity under PLI told FE that, “if the confirmation is communicated to the bidders, they can move with speed on ordering equipment and commissioning the plants in the next 12-18 months allaying the fear of supply not keeping pace with demand.”

Some are even confident of leveraging the global scenario where most countries are looking at deleveraging their dependence on China and developing a credible second supply chain by supplying to export markets like USA while the domestic demand ramps up to 30 GW per annum.

Tata Power that has applied for a total of 8GW capacity under the PLI scheme with 4GW each for cell and module manufacturing. It is learnt from sources that they are initially looking to integrate at cell and module level and wait for market to pan out before entering into wafer and polysilicon-manufacturing. In terms of technology they want to use advance high-end panels to beat the competition. “Depending on the capacity the company will take around 12-18 months to complete the project once it’s awarded,” sources said.

Officials also believe since the PLI support is based on technology and local value addition, it will help entire domestic raw material value chain across glass, aluminium, backsheet, and Polysilicon to grow, generating huge employment, and research and development.

EPC companies believe although PLI is a good step to incentivise the Indian manufacturers, an introduction of 40% basic custom duty (BCD) in a single go is a steep measure as Indian manufacturers can hardly supply 25% of the demand at this stage.

Gautam Das, founder and CEO of Oorjan Cleantech, said, “A gradual increase in BCD, say from 20% to 40%, over two years might have brought a better balance. We hope the international and domestic supply chain will come to an equilibrium soon and there will be a long-term benefit of these measures. Undoubtedly, the objective of the government is rightfully directed towards promoting “Made in India” panels and production linked incentives (PLI) is a good step.”

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bucket-list-for-solar-pli-scheme-in-two-months-mnre-official/2427982/