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MNRE Announces ALMM Reforms to Boost Domestic Solar PV Module Manufacturing

The major reforms include reduction in application fee by 80 percent, and substantial reduction in inspection fee, with reduction in certain cases being as high as 70 percent.

May 16, 2023. By Anurima Mondal

In a bid to promote domestic production, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has come up with a number of reforms in its ALMM mechanism for solar photovoltaic modules.

The reforms are primarily aimed at reducing cost to solar PV manufactures, time between application to enlistment as well as compliance burden and increasing ease of doing business in the whole ALMM process.

The major reforms include reduction in application fee by 80 percent, substantial reduction in inspection fee, with reduction in certain cases being as high as 70 percent, exemption from factory inspection in case of enlistment of additional models in ALMM which are similar to those already enlisted by the applicant, but having lower wattage, allowing the manufacturers to withdraw their applications prior to factory inspection, with refund of 90 percent of application fee and increase in ALMM enlistment validity from 2 years to 4 years.

For manufacturers enlisted in ALMM, a provisional ALMM enlistment will be granted within 7 days of receipt of BIS registration and time-limit of two months for factory enlistment and final enlistment, failing which deemed enlistment.

All future ALMM application to be accompanied by scanned copy of applications and processing of ALMM applications will start without waiting for the submission of hard copies, which can be submitted subsequently.

The ministry has introduced following end-use category-wise minimum module efficiency thresholds for enlistment in ALMM:

Utility/ Grid Scale Power Plants: 20.00 percent
Rooftop and Solar Pumping: 19.50 percent
Solar Lighting: 19.00 percent

Talking about the changes, MNRE Secretary B.S. Bhalla said that the changes in the ALMM for Photovoltaic Modules, would enhance the ease of doing business and help in ramping up the domestic production of solar photovoltaic modules for catering to the current and the future demand.

"The PLI Scheme has resulted in not only boosting the domestic manufacturing capacity of solar modules but also vertical integration of the value chain in India. We have already declared the bid trajectory of inviting bids of 50 GW renewables each year for the next 5 years. This includes 40 GW of Solar energy capacity. The bid trajectory is aimed at providing a fillip to the RE manufacturing industry in the country by indicating the demand that would be created. The easing of the ALMM charges and regulations is a step in the direction of enhancing the Ease of Doing Business, lessening the compliance burden and reducing the charges incurred in various processes of listing under ALMM,” he added.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) issued 'Approved Models and Manufacturers of Solar Photovoltaic Modules (Requirement for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2019' on January 2, 2019.

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