India’s government has approved the second round of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to incentivise domestic solar PV module manufacturing.
The scheme expects to add 65GW of manufacturing capacity of fully and partially integrated solar PV modules, which will bring direct investments of nearly INR940 billion (US$11.59 billion).
Selected manufacturers will receive the PLI for a period of five years, while the programme expects to create a manufacturing capacity for materials such as EVA, solar glass and back-sheets, among others.
The scheme is expected to create 195,000 direct jobs in solar manufacturing and a further 780,000 indirect jobs.
The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy’s PLI scheme received increased funding of INR195 billion (US$2.4 billion) in February 2021, a major step-up from its INR45 billion initial allocation, to achieve a gigawatt scale manufacturing capacity in high-efficiency solar PV modules in India.
With this new incentive, India continues to invest in its domestic manufacturing capacity in order to reduce its dependency on imported solar PV modules, mainly from China.
Recently released figures from think tank Ember show that India’s solar capacity is expected to reach 300GW by the end of the decade, while the government’s “Approved List of Models and Manufacturers” (ALMM) recently passed 18GW of capacity between 66 different entities registered.
