In an office memorandum dated July 18, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said such projects can now be commissioned without complying with approved list of models and manufacturers list-II or ALMM-II for solar photovoltaic cells until December. The earlier exemption expired on May 31.
“Any project in these segments, commissioning after May 31, can continue with imported cells,” a government official told ET.
The exemption mostly covers commercial and industrial segment projects. Of the 44.61 GW of solar energy capacity added in FY26, 15 GW came from the commercial and industrial segment.
The ALMM-II or mandatory procurement of cells for all solar projects came into force on June 1.
However, the renewable energy ministry had through an order dated May 25, had said it would give exemption for some open access and net metering projects on a case-to-case basis for which applications by developers were to be made by June 30.
With the latest order, the government has brought all projects in the open access and net metering segments under exemption, which supersedes the previous exemption order.”This step will also help the standalone solar module manufacturers by providing them protection of investments already made, in the form of inventories, through additional demand creation,” a government statement said.
It will also provide the companies sufficient time before they could effectively increase their sourcing of solar cells from ALMM-II enlisted solar cell manufacturers.
The ministry clarified that the government’s policy on ALMM-II remains unchanged and that the extension is limited to these two categories of projects.
According to the ministry, the additional window will help standalone solar module manufacturers utilise existing inventories while giving them more time to shift procurement towards manufacturers enlisted under ALMM List-II as domestic approved cell manufacturing capacity continues to increase.
The list acts as a non-tariff barrier to push local manufacturing and solar modules are already covered under ALMM-I. India has built staggering 172 GW solar module manufacturing capacity as of March end.