Govt to unveil new policy for solar manufacturing units

Committee will be headed by Kant

Aiming to encourage companies for setting up integrated solar manufacturing units in the country under Make In India programme, the Centre is working on a new policy to extend subsidy and business assurances to them. 

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has set up a committee headed by Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, and it suggested extending subsidy and business assurances to attract solar manufacturers. Soon the proposal will be sent to the Ministry of Finance for approval said Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy here on Saturday.

Integrated solar manufacturing units make everything from solar cells, solar photovoltaic modules, ingots and wafers. The subsidy support will be given on the basis of a reverse bidding process so those interested in setting up such plants can bid for the least amount of subsidy required to be competitive in the market, he said.

As par the promoting green energy, the government is also started working on transparent bidding for setting up wind power projects on the line of solar. Besides, the ministry is also preparing a plan to revive sick hydro power projects.

“In hydro, Rural Electrification Corporation, Power Finance Corporation are also working on some kind of mechanism maybe a take-out financing model to restart all the projects that have got stalled across several years,” the minister said.

The primary move would be to increase the ambit of small hydro projects to 100 MW from current 25 MW. This would help achieve the renewable energy targets of states and also bring a large number of projects under the net of government subsidy and other tax benefits, said an official from the Ministry of Power.

The installed capacity of hydro power projects has remained 40,000 MW for the past three years, while that of the renewable energy sector has increased about 20% in the same period. In the past decade, RE (solar and wind power) has grown by 89%, while hydro has staggered at 28%.