In November 2020, the central government approved the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) program for ten critical sectors to enhance India’s manufacturing capabilities and exports under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

Solar has made its way to the list with an outlay of ₹45 billion (~$605 million), which was increased to ₹195 billion (~$2.61 billion) in the 2022 budget announcement. The PLI program for solar was instituted to establish a larger manufacturing base for solar modules by fully integrating manufacturing units from polysilicon to solar modules and reducing the renewable energy sector’s import dependence.

In the IREDA auction to set up a manufacturing capacity of 10 GW of modules, Reliance New Energy Solar, Adani Infrastructure, and Shirdi Sai Electricals emerged winners.

Mercom is hosting ‘Mercom India Solar Summit 2022,’ an exclusive event on July 28-29 in New Delhi where key stakeholders across the solar sector will participate.

The summit will address critical issues, opportunities, and emerging trends in the industry, including the government’s push for local manufacturing, its aggressive solar installation goal, supply chains, technology, financing, and other critical issues.

In one of the sessions titled ‘Plans and Progress of Vertically Scaling Solar Manufacturing in India,’ scheduled for July 29, 2022, panelists will discuss timelines and details for cell, wafer, and polysilicon manufacturing and the technologies planned for production beyond polycrystalline and mono PERC.

The panel will have Sujoy Ghosh, Vice President & Country, Managing Director – India, First Solar; and Rahul Bhutiani, Head of Sales & Marketing, Adani Solar. Priya Sanjay, Managing Director, Mercom India, will moderate the session.

In May, MNRE issued draft guidelines to implement the second phase (Tranche II) of the PLI program under the ‘National Program on High-Efficiency Solar Modules.’ According to the guidelines, ₹120 billion (~$1.54 billion) has been reserved for companies setting up vertically integrated capacities of polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules. An allocation of ₹45 billion (~$580.84 million) has been made for those setting up wafers, cells, and modules capacity, and ₹30 billion (~$387.23 million) for cells and modules capacity.