India to Revise Solar PLI Scheme to Introduce More Participants

India is mulling a revamp of the country’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the solar power equipment sector to promote manufacturing of all solar components and include more players, as reported by Economic Times on March 18. Specifically, the PLI scheme could be split into different aspects, including polysilicon-to-modules making, wafers to modules, and cells to modules manufacturing, according to the minister of power and renewable energy, R K Singh. On February 1, India added USD2.6bn of funding to the Photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing PLI scheme, a dramatic increase to the initial financial support of USD616.8m for the program in April 2021.

India put forward the solar PLI scheme to build a comprehensive supply chain of PV components since the country still falls short in polysilicon and wafer production. It now has a production capacity of 15 gigawatts (GW), mostly for cells and modules. India plans to boost the capacity to 36 GW in the next two years with the PLI scheme. Also, India’s ministry of new and renewable energy proposed that only manufacturers with a minimum of 90% local value addition and 22% module performance are eligible for the PLI scheme, in a move to optimize the production capability and cut reliance on raw material imports from China. According to India’s renewables plan, it will raise the installed capacity of renewable power from 101 GW in 2021 to 450 GW in 2030, which will comprise 280 GW of solar energy and 140 GW of wind power.

Sources:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/solar-pli-scheme-may-be-split/articleshow/90299610.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

https://www.pv-tech.org/indias-solar-pli-scheme-may-be-split-to-boost-participation-reports-suggest/

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/2030-renewable-energy-target-panel-to-be-set-up-soon-for-mission-500gw/articleshow/88267104.cms?from=mdr