The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) has announced 3 winning bidders of its solar manufacturing Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, awarding INR 44.5 billion to the winners – Jindal India Solar Energy Limited, Shirdi Sai Electricals Limited (SSE) and Reliance New Energy Solar Limited (RNESL).
Jindal India has won INR 13.9 billion ($187 million) of the total PLI amount for 5 years, while SSE secured INR 18.75 billion ($252 million). Both will use the money to set up 4 GW manufacturing capacity each. RNESL has quoted INR 19.17 billion ($258 million), but was awarded INR 11.9 billion ($160 million). According to Mercom India Research, RNESL will invest this money to set up 2.483 GW manufacturing capacity.
Primarily an electrical transformer producer, SSE was announced by the Press Trust of India (PTI) as having received a letter of award (LOA) from IREDA for its share of 4 GW capacity support.
In all, IREDA had received a massive response to this tender with interested bidders offering to set up 54.5 GW PV manufacturing capacity. Apart from the trio that have won the PLI amount, there are 13 more companies in the waiting list (see IREDA Qualifies Bidders For Solar PLI Scheme).
The 13 companies on the waiting list are Adani Infrastructure, FS India Solar Ventures, Coal India Limited, Larsen & Toubro, Renew Solar (Shakti Four), Tata Power Solar, Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar, Avaada Ventures, Megha Engineering and Infrastructures, Premier Energies, ACME Eco Clean Energy and Emmvee Photovoltaic Power. Some of these companies have already announced capacity expansion plans.
According to local media reports, Union Minister for Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, RK Singh has said the federal government has in-principle approved to increase the total amount of solar PLI to INR 240 billion from INR 45 billion, which would mean companies in IREDA's waiting list still stand a chance.
The minister added that the production equipment for solar manufacturing will be imported, which should be a positive for RNESL that recently invested €25 million in German silicon solar wafer producer NexWafe GmbH and plans to build solar wafer facilities in India (see Strategic Investment For German Wafer Producer).
Singh shared that currently the manufacturing capacity of India for solar modules is 8.8 GW, and for cells it is 2.5 GW, which enables only a small domestic product share for the country to meet its 500 GW non-fossil fuel energy capacity aim for 2030, under its newly announced net zero target for 2070 (see India Goes For Net Zero By 2070).