Caught in a solar flare
Earlier this month India — that already has punitive duty barriers of close to 50% for importing solar modules and cells from overseas — came up with its own set of non-tariff barriers to predominantly block Beijing. This coincided with US treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s heightened political pitch around overcapacity in Chinese steel, solar, EV, lithium-ion batteries and other clean tech products, as a precursor to a crackdown on imports.
The updated docket or roster of vendors who can supply solar panels to our large scale power developers is an 82 page document, with 83 vendors and predictably has no Chinese candidates. As per this Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) order for solar photovoltaic modules, domestic module manufacturers will also have to register their sub-contractors and vendors with the renewable energy ministry.
With such existing high duties already in place, the new policy is nothing but an overkill. Making matters worse, our legendary bureaucracy that did multiple policy flip-flops, clarifications, and even a rescinded a version completely before coming out with the final notification. One can only hope, they did not got carried away by the 1st April kick-off date and have indeed bulked up manpower and resources to check modules in transit or the ones that have been delivered but not commissioned yet. They are to be taken up “on a case to case basis.” Industry expects modules for 3-4GW of projects getting caught up in this transit bureaucracy.
The approved white list of
