Webinar: Guidelines for PLI Scheme ‘National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules’
EQ Magazine conducted a webinar on Guidelines for PLI Scheme ‘National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules’ on May 18, 2021. Recently, the PLI scheme was announced and approved.
The guidelines have also been floated. In the webinar, experts and senior stakeholders presented their views on the PLI scheme and its benefits to the Indian domestic industry.
The guidelines were discussed along with related advantages and disadvantages. Mr. Ruchin Gupta, Director Solar – MNRE, Government of India participated as the Keynote Speaker and Vikas Arya, Head –Product Strategy, Solar Business, Jakson Group participated as the Moderator in the webinar.
Ajay Mishra, AGM International BD & Marcom, Waaree Energies Ltd., Manish Dabkara, MD & CEO, EnKing International, Manish Gupta, Director, Insolation Energy, Bimal Jindal, Director- SCM – SB Energy (SoftBank Group), Abhishek Shah, Director-IGH-Strategy and Transformation, KPMG India, Prashant Mathur, CEO – Saatvik Green Energy (P) Ltd., Ravi Verma, Member- Governing Council, SPDA, Vishanth Venkatesh, Head of Product Management – Adani Solar and Prasoon Chaudhary, Business Unit Head – PV- Manufacturing – Pennar Industries Ltd. participated in the webinar as speakers.
Ajay Mishra, AGM International BD & Marcom, Waaree Energies Ltd said, “When we talk about the PLI scheme, I think this is a good move by the government right now.
We have been asking for the various boosters which will help the manufacturing industry boom in India. This is one of the boosters we have got.” He expressed concern over the amount allocated for this scheme which he feels could have been much more.
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“Looking at the kind of facilities and schemes available in China, the way they are progressing and the way their government is supporting them, we are far behind right now to compete with that.”
He says that this amount is less for the kind of solar targets we have. He further said that 80 per cent of the value addition happens at the module level and the maximum number of jobs are also generated at the module level.
In his opinion, if the scheme would have been from cell to module then it would have benefitted more people and attracted a lot of investments in the country. He says the PLI scheme is a good initiative and it would have been much better if it could have been limited to cells and modules.
Manish Gupta, Director, Insolation Energy elaborated on the scheme and shared his views on it. He informed, “Government brought this PLI scheme for all Polysilicon range to provide encouragement to the domestic solar manufacturing industry. The government has also announced basic custom duty on April 1, 2020.
The government has already finalized the ALMM. Government has already mandated BIS certification for all Indian manufacturers.” He then shared a presentation on PLI Scheme and explained the selection criteria for PLI and proposal in detail.
He expresses concern over the eligibility criteria. In his opinion, this scheme is not for the mass or MSMEs, this is only for few players in India. He said that practically the routine manufacturers or MSME, module or cell manufacturers are not benefitted from this scheme.
Vikas Arya, Head, Product Strategy, Solar Business, Jakson Group said, “We have a large number of module manufacturers today. Looking at this scheme, it is not going to benefit the majority.
If we take it from the Government’s perspective, there are two-three important parameters while coming up with this scheme. One, they have come out with a scale, minimum 1GW, they want the bigger players to be there.
Secondly, they have talked about is the efficiency of the module. They want the latest technology to be adopted and the third is the contribution of local value addition. These three will directly or indirectly give a boost to the Indian manufacturing.”
Abhishek Shah, Director-IGH-Strategy and Transformation presented his views as an advisor, consultant and as data analytics company on how he looks at this scheme from the perspective of the manufacturers, buyers and Indian consumers.
He spoke on three things that are still valid today in his views- protecting the Indian industry from predatory pricing, providing incentives to large scale manufacturing to compete globally and promotion of innovation in India.
He further said, “It is not possible for us to be competitive in the long run just by importing equipment and the following technology. Unless we have domestic capacity and innovation where IIT Bombay and other institutes partnering with the larger manufactures, it will not work.
There is a large opportunity now because a lot of countries don’t want to have Chinese made products, not only in the solar panels but in every other product. India has a large opportunity in this because we can become a low-cost manufacturer.
We don’t have to compete with the Chinese. We can advantage from our low-cost labour, PLI scheme and use these three-four years to have globally competitive capacities to compete.” He said that the whole government policy has changed to support manufacturing.
Ruchin Gupta, Director Solar – MNRE, Government of India said “When we started with the scheme we were in the dilemma. The government never wants to leave out the small and MSME sectors which the Ministry is very much conscious and aware of, gives in terms of investment much more employment than probably what bigger corporations can give.
The flip side is that normally it is understood that bigger organizations/ corporations as we see in China have economies of scale they are in a better position to employ the latest technology. They are in a better position to compete with the world. We had to go ahead with the prime objective of making our investment globally competitive.”
He said that augmentation of the budget is a very important element which we all are banking on. “If we can somehow make it clear by way of industry representation to the Ministry, the response or the participation can be clearly shown that the industry wants much more allocation under the scheme.
Based on such representations and responses, this Ministry can take up with the Ministry of Finance, NITI Aayog and other stakeholders requesting for larger allocation to PLI.”
He said, “We have been advising people to bring it in black and white to the Ministry. Until and unless, there have something from this industry in terms of response, this Ministry cannot ask for more money. If there is something in black and white, probably based on it would be much easier for this ministry to take up the cause of augmenting this budgetary outlay.”
“We have already requested augmenting the total financial outlay. That’s the reason we have the provision of a waiting list which is there in the scheme guidelines also.
That is with regard to the limited budget and leaving aside the smaller companies.” He also discussed ALMM, BCD and provisions of the scheme. “The emphasis is on larger among the large corporations. We are giving more marks on the total capacities. We are giving further preference to size even among the large corporation.
The whole idea emphasis is that number one you have an integrated chain that will lower the cost because you have your own raw material and imports. At the same time, you are large in scale so the economy of the scale should work in your favour.”
“Based on my interaction with people, I can say that even if we have not had this scheme, we would have seen by the virtue of other measures that we have taken, we would have seen a lot of investments in case of solar PV modules and solar PV cells. My personal worry would be certainly wafers as not many people are that confident.
So, it remains to be seen how much response we get for our solar wafer manufacturing. We are watching it with cross fingers. In that area, we would like more people to come forward and have as much participation as possible.” He answered certain questions from industries in detail and discussed various scheme related issues and concerns with the panellists.
Prashant Mathur, CEO, Saatvik Green Energy (P) Ltd presented his views saying, “The thought of PLI scheme is most welcome. The Government is thinking of providing incentives to scale up manufacturing and that’s a welcome step.
We would like to see more to scheme or part II scheme which favours medium-sized manufacturers also who want to integrate at a cell level rather than on our pay for it on the polysilicon level.” He shared his expectations from the scheme.
Ravi Verma, Member- Governing Council, SPDA presented his insight from the perspective of the developers on the PLI scheme. He said, “As a whole, we want the domestic manufacturing to grow and this scheme is a welcome step.
As other speakers discussed this is not enough. We need a robust domestic industry and the scale is required so that the competitive market is there with high-quality modules. In this sector, regular upgradation is required.
Along with PLI, there should be TUF like that on the technology upgradation. So, all over Indian manufacturers keep pace with the technology. So, it’s the long term stability that the developers require. In case of changes in policy or taxes, it gets difficult for the developers to arrange additional funds.
He said, there should be major stage so that lot of investment goes into this so that the scale of the economies can be worked out. “Ultimately, cheaper power is given to the consumers. So if the tariff goes up then the solar power will also not be sold. So both manufacturers, as well as developers, depend on each other. Policy stability is a must in the developer’s field.”
Bimal Jindal, Director- SCM – SB Energy (SoftBank Group) presented his views on the scheme. “I think it is a good move. One of the factors which our manufacturing friends can speak more upon is they need to see how they can sustain themselves to get the higher PLI benefits which means they need to look into the R&D and technology part.
If they continue to go with mono, we need to see how that will evolve and get benefits. The pricing competitiveness, one of the major factor is going to come from polysilicon and wafers.”
He further said, “The good part which I can see with the PLI scheme and couple of other things that are going on the manufacturing in India is already picking up. We can see some big names coming into the market. So, when there are more developer and manufacturers who are going to produce in India, it means the technology and R& D spent will also increase.
Further, it will make the price more competitive. On top of that, it will give comfort to the developers. If I look from the developers’ perspective, it is easy to coordinate with the person sitting next to him in India compared to the person sitting in another country.” He discussed further in detail. “It shows the sign that industry in India is going to benefit from this scheme and the technology part can be one of the constraints.”
Manish Dabkara, MD & CEO, EnKing International discussed with participants on the carbon credits and carbon markets that are available and the additional benefit in the form of climate finance or carbon finance that can be assured to whatever new manufacturing plant that is going to be energy efficient. He shared details about his company, carbon credits, Renewable Energy Attributes and carbon credit standards.
He further discussed the professional procedure for registration in the carbon credit standard. He shared details on the types of projects executed by EKIESL.
Questions from other participants were addressed and answered. Vikas Arya summarized the session stating this is the right step taken by the Government which was very much needed.
The USP of the scheme includes the local value addition components (gives an edge that people should go for Indian suppliers), high efficiency of the product and the scale of the plants. Prashant Mathur presented his takeaway on the scheme and summarized the webinar.
Vikas Arya concluded the session with a presentation on the PLI scheme describing its aims, objectives, implementing agencies, selection of beneficiaries, selection criteria, calculation of PLI, timelines for commissioning facilities and penalties.
