MNRE proposes draft policy to ensure solar cell quality in India, plans 'approved list' for manufacturers

Shilpa Samant & Deepshikha Sikarwar New Delhi: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) will soon release a draft policy to ensure the quality and reliability of solar cells used in ma- k ing modules deployed in India. This is proposed to be rolled out through an "approved list of models and manufac- turers (ALNIM) for solar cel Is, " with industry being allowed sufficient time to plan, MNRE secretary Bhupinder Singh Bhalla told ET. "It has to be prospective. There will be consultation with the industry, comments will be invited and then a decision (taken) on it, " Bhalla said. ALMM is a list of the models and manu- facturers, currently for solar modules, that project developers can buy equip- ment from. Cell manufacturing capacities in India are set to rise to more than 30 GW by the end of the financial year, Bhalla said, from6GWnow India's solarequipment demand is rising considerably and most cells are being imported, with China being the major supplier. The ministry will also likely seek bids for 500 M W offshore wind capacity under the viabil i ty gap funding scheme recently approved by cabinet within a month. pu SCHEME The government is also examining an extension of deadl ines for the production- linked incentive (PLI) scheme for solar photovoltaic modules in view of demands from participants in the programme. "We are considering it and examining the actual scale of the need. We will take a decision based on genuine requi- rements," he said. "Right now. we ha- ven't made a decision, but a lot of requ- ests have come. " Extensions have mainly been sought on account of choice of technology and availability of equipment. PM SURYAGHAR The m in istry has disbursed crore so far for rooftop solar installations under the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which was launched mid-February. It has also disbursed around ?200 crore for about 30,000 installations under the old rooftop solar scheme in the same period. It sanctioned another el ,000 crore to REC , which is the nodal agency for the PM Surya Ghar programme, that will be disbursed in instalments of 000 crore each under terms set by the finance ministry. The next instalment can be drawn as soon as 75% of the previous one is spent. There is no dearth of funds or rooftop solar kits, Bhalla said. Domestic solar module supplies are sufficient with more than 50 GW of capacity currently, he said. "We don't foresee a problem in domes- tic cells availability in the next few months. As of now, whatever demand is there, it is available, " he said.

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