RIL, ReNew, 9 others secure solar PLI sops
2 min read 28 Mar 2023, 11:16 PM ISTGovt to offer entities ₹14,007 cr incentives to manufacture solar cells
PremiumNEW DELHI : Reliance Industries Ltd, Tata Power Solar, and ReNew are among companies chosen to receive ₹14,007 crore worth of government incentives to encourage the local manufacturing of solar modules under its production-linked incentive scheme.
Overall, Solar Energy Corp. of India, the state-run company set up to implement the National Solar Mission, has allocated 38,600MW of capacity to 11 companies.
India aims to boost its renewable energy capacity to 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, with solar power accounting for over half of the goal. To meet this ambitious target, the government is encouraging domestic production of solar modules and trying to reduce its dependence on imports from China, with which it shares an uneasy relationship and a significant trade deficit.
Indosol, First Solar and Reliance New Energy Solar, a unit of Reliance Industries, have been selected to manufacture all components in the solar module value chain—polysilicon, wafers, cells and module. Indosol and Reliance have been allocated 6,000MW each, and First Solar has bagged a capacity of 3,400MW.
The companies selected for manufacturing wafers, cells and modules under the incentive scheme are Waaree Energies (6,000MW), Avaada Group (3,000MW), ReNew (4,800 MW), JSW Renewable Technologies (1,000MW) and Grew Energy (2,000MW).
Vikram Solar and Tata Power Solar are among the companies selected for manufacturing cells and modules, with allocated capacities of 2,400MW and 4,000MW, respectively.
A power ministry statement said that manufacturing capacity totalling 7,400MW is expected to become operational by October 2024, while 16,800MW capacity would be ready by April 2025. The remaining 15,400MW capacity would be operational by April 2026.
“The tranche-II is expected to bring in an investment of ₹93,041 crore. It will also generate a total of 101,487 jobs with 35,010 getting direct employment and 66,477 being indirectly employed," it said.
Commenting on the development, power minister R.K. Singh said that India is well on its way to climbing up the value chain in the production of the high technology solar PV modules and this capacity addition is a major step towards making India self-sufficient in the solar manufacturing sector. “The PLI scheme has proved to be a watershed event in India’s renewable landscape resulting in around 48GW domestic module manufacturing capacity within the next three years. The scheme has boosted government’s efforts to reduce not only the impact of global supply chain shocks but also our import dependence adhering to the prime minister’s vision of an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’," said Singh, who also holds the portfolio of new and renewable energy ministry.
A total integrated capacity of 8,737MW was allocated under tranche-I of the scheme in November-December. Considering the two tranches together, the total domestic solar PV module manufacturing capacity allocated under the PLI Scheme is 48,337MW, with cumulative support of more than ₹18,500 crore by the government, the statement said.
In the first tranche, Reliance New Energy Solar, Adani Group and Sri Shirdi Sai Group had bagged the incentives.
In the FY23 budget, the Centre announced the allocation of an additional ₹19,500 crore under the solar PLI scheme to manufacture high-efficiency modules, with priority to fully integrated manufacturing units from polysilicon to solar PV modules.
