NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries (RIL) and Tata Power are among the companies bidding for $2.4 billion financial incentives offered by the government to expand domestic manufacturing of solar panel and curb panel imports from dominant producer China.
As per the reports, other companies participating in the bid are US-based First Solar and Indian firms JSW Energy, Avaada Group and ReNew Energy Global. Adani Group, one of the largest solar panel makers in India, gave a miss to the bidding process. The deadline for bids was February 28, after several extensions.
This financial assistance to the firms is part of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for National Programme on High-Efficiency Solar PV Modules for achieving domestic manufacturing capacity of Giga Watt (GW) scale in high-efficiency solar PV modules and solar PV cells.
The government had allotted Rs 24,000 crore for the scheme. The scheme aims to build an ecosystem for manufacturing high-efficiency solar PV modules in India and cut import dependence in renewable energy.
Solar PV manufacturers will be selected via a transparent selection process per the scheme. PLI will be disbursed for five years post commissioning of solar PV manufacturing plants on sales of solar PV modules from the domestic market will be incentivised.
Per the latest report, by Mercom Capital, India’s solar module manufacturing capacity is expected to reach 95 GW by the end of 2025. It said India’s capacity for solar module making was announced at 39 GW in September 2022.