April 2022 ALMM List. 10 New manufacturers, 1.2 GW Fresh Capacity Approved

The Ministry of New And Renewable Energy (MNRE), in keeping with its regular updates to the ALMM list (Approved List of Module Manufacturers), released the newest update to the list on April 5.

The updated list has 10 new manufacturers, besides an additional 100 MW capacity for Tata Power and 711 MW for  Premier Energies. In fact, add the 215 MW approval for Hyderabad based Novus Green Energy Systems limited, and the remaining 9 manufacturers are all small manufacturers, with capacities ranging from 20 MW to 100 MW.

The ALMM updation comes even as the MNRE has been balancing the needs to domestic manufacturers with that of large developers and commercial segment demand. Thus, even as the BCD regime kicked in from April this year, providing a 40% protection from imports of modules, the last date for compliance with MNRE’s directive for all ‘aided’ projects to use ALMM approved sourcing has been extended to October, 2022.

The monthly updates continue to keep out any foreign manufacturing presence, although with all covid travel restrictions effectively gone now, the coming months should provide for an extremely interesting viewpoint on how the ministry approaches foreign manufacturers who seek empanelment too. It is widely believed that some of the top names will consider a move, and that will effectively force India to make its policy clearer. The October deadline ion that sense seems to have been kept keeping in mind a potential  scope to keep out foreign manufacturers from getting approval upto that point.

By that time, the picture will also be clearer in terms of actual impact on project costings, depending on uptake from domestic manufacturers and their selling prices. Readers will be aware that thanks to the unprecedented volatility in input costs, and now the roiling crude oil prices, domestic manufacturers have had a rough time controlling costs, and some of the leading manufacturers like Vikram Solar have struggled to turn a profit. Smaller manufacturers have also complained about stockpiling by large developers to take advantage of the zero duty structure between July end 2021 and March 2022.