Union Energy Minister RK Singh said the 2022-23 Budget has everything that is required for the energy transition, including a provision of an additional Rs 19.5 billion to boost home solar equipment manufacturing by up to 45 gigawatts (GW).
In the Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman provided an additional Rs. Rs 19,500 crore for Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules.
This will raise the existing PLI scheme for solar equipment from Rs. 4,500 crore to Rs. Rs 24,000 crore, which will result in the creation of an additional manufacturing capacity of up to 45 GW in the country.
“What was required for the energy transition has been foreseen in this Budget (presented on Tuesday). We have an energy transition challenge ahead of us. The energy transition is necessary to face climate change”, said the minister.
He added that the government has to move towards lower energy sources that cause lower emissions or none at all. We need to do two things. First, we need to produce solar equipment here (in India) which is imported. The government has provided an additional Rs 19.5 billion to PLI for solar manufacturing,” Singh said.
He also stated that PLI is a great scheme and helps create a production capacity of 40GW to 45GW of solar equipment here in India, ranging from polysilicon to modules.
In his Budget Speech, Sitharaman said that to facilitate domestic manufacturing for the ambitious target of 280 GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, an additional allocation of Rs. Rs 19,500 crore will be made for the PLI scheme.
In April 2021, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs. PLI scheme of Rs 4,500 crore to increase the domestic manufacturing capacity of solar PV modules.
When the plan was approved in April 2021, it aimed to add a manufacturing capacity of 10,000 megawatts (MW) of integrated solar PV modules, involving a direct investment of Rs 17.2 billion today.
On raising import tariffs on solar modules from 20 percent to 40 percent, Singh stated that “we will be using solar modules made in India and therefore a customs duty of 40 percent will be imposed from April 1.” of 2022″.
The budget document has also proposed raising solar cell import tariffs to 25 percent from 20 percent from April 1, 2022.
