RIL, First Solar, Shirdi Sai Bid For 15.5 Gw End-to-end Solar Manufacturing

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), US-based First Solar and Shirdi Sai have bid for end-to-end polysilicon wafer cells modules (PWCM) manufacturing for a total of 15.4 gigawatt (Gw) under the second tranche of the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for solar equipment manufacturing.

RIL and Shirdi Sai have each placed bids for 6 Gw while First Solar has bid for 3.4 Gw.

Under the PLI guidelines for the second phase, of the total corpus of Rs 19,000 crore, the highest tranche of Rs 12,000 crore has been allotted to end-to-end PWCM manufacturing (raw material to finished product). Unlike the first round, this phase of solar PLI has three schemes – PWCM and wafer-cells-modules, with allocation of Rs 4,500 crore and cells-modules with Rs 3,500 crore.

No firm in India currently makes polysilicon, the raw material for the entire supply chain of solar equipment manufacturing.

First Solar is a Nasdaq-listed, US-based solar module manufacturer that has been operating in India as a module supplier for nearly a decade. This would be its first manufacturing unit in India. Andhra Pradesh-based Shirdi Sai, an incumbent from phase-I, manufactures power transmission and distribution equipment.

The second phase had 11 bidders in all --Tata Power Solar, Vikram Solar, Waaree Energies, ReNew Solar, Avaada Ventures, JSW Renewable, Ampin Solar and Green Energy were among the others. Tata Power is learnt to have placed a bid for 3 Gw of solar cell and module capacity.

A major absentee was Adani Enterprises which was one of the winners in the first phase for 4 Gw of solar module. Other winners were RIL and Shirdi Sai for a similar capacity.

In the first tranche of tendering, the Centre received close to 50 Gw of bids against a PLI sanction of Rs 4,500 crore and RfP of 10 Gw. It received close to 18 bids from a range of companies - Coal India, L&T, Vikram Solar, Megha Engineering and several new companies.

The corpus was increased to Rs 19,500 crore under the Union Budget 2022-23 to accommodate the large number of bids. The nodal agency for the second tranche of bidding has also been changed to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) from Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (Ireda) earlier.