April ALMM List-As Capacity Touches 44.6 GW, First Solar Makes Entry

The latest released Approved List Of Module Manufacturers (ALMM), released by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on April 29 pegged the total enlisted module manufacturing capacity at 44.6 Gigawatt (GW). This is as against the earliest enlisted capacity of 41.5 GW. 

Accounting for a significant part of the jump in the domestic solar module manufacturing capacity was the only foreign, and American solar module manufacturer First Solar. First Solar made its entry to the ALMM list with a total capacity of 3.212 Gigawatt (GW). First Solar is also the only foreign-based solar module manufacturing which won the Indian government's Production-Linked Incentives (PLI) for producing solar modules in India. The full ALMM list can be viewed here. 

First Solar, which has its solar manufacturing plant at Pilaipakkam in Tamil Nadu, also became the only solar module manufacturer under the ALMM list offering Cadmium Telluride thin film modules. It happens to be the world's only large scale manufacturer of these modules, as against the popular Silicon-based crystalline modules. The MNRE meanwhile last month had also announced tweaking its minimum threshold capacity and segregating it for Silicon-based solar modules and Cadmium Telluride-based solar modules.

List of solar module manufacturers listed under ALMM. Source MNRE

Other attractions

The ALMM list indicated that First Solar received its enlistment for two of its Cadmium Telluride thin film modules, both with capacities of 525 Wp. Another attraction was the enlistment of TOPCon solar modules by several Indian solar module manufacturers. 

TOPCon modules continued their march, as the list indicates that Gujarat-based Ganesh Green Bharat Limited applied for four categories of N-type TOPCon modules. Similar is the tale of other solar module manufacturing firms like Saatvik Solar, Emmvee and Pahal Solar. All these firms also enlisted its new models of bifacial TOPCon modules. Tata Power and SASA Energy also got their latest Mono-PERC modules enlisted.

MNRE regularly updates its ALMM list to provide information about the models produced by domestic solar module manufacturers. It was envisioned earlier as a non-tariff barrier where only the ALMM enlisted solar module manufacturers were allowed to supply solar modules for government or government-supported solar projects. This was done to protect the local manufacturers against the invasion of cheaper Chinese modules through imports.