New guidelines were issued by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the present set of guidelines is applicable to the Second Batch of the photovoltaic projects to be selected during 2011-12. These guidelines will have no bearing on the projects which were selected in the First Batch in 2010-11.

There are several changes in the guidelines for batch 2 compared to the guidelines of batch 1.

– Projects offering the maximum discount in Rs/kWh would be selected first (bidding)

– Maximum capacity of a single PV plant raised to 20 MW from 5 MW.

– Plant capacity can be in multiples of 5MW (from 5MW to 20MW).

– A company can bid for a maximum of 3 projects totaling 50MW.

– Deadline for achieving financial closure raised to 7 months from the 6 months.

– The timeline for the commissioning of projects is extended to 13 months from 12 months.

– Part commissioning of the Project shall be accepted by NVVN subject to the condition that the minimum capacity for acceptance of part commissioning shall be 5 MW and in multiples thereof.

– Controlling shareholding in the project must be at least 50% for 1 year compared to 26%.

– Domestic requirement – it will be mandatory for all the Projects to use cells and modules manufactured in India. PV Modules made from thin film technologies or concentrator PV cells may be sourced from any country.

– The Net Worth of the company should be equal to or greater than Rs 3 Crore (~$639K) for project capacity up to 20 MW. For every MW additional capacity beyond 20 MW, additional net worth of Rs. 2 Crore (~$426K) would need to be demonstrated.

Click here to download the factsheet – JNNSM: Selection for Grid Connected Solar Power Projects (Phase 1, Batch 2)