Parliament Calls for Storage Push, New Tenders, and Polysilicon Scheme

The Indian solar sector needs to revisit its tendering mechanism and develop a risk-based framework to evaluate the probability of solar plant failures. Lok Sabha’s 18th Parliamentary Report has recommended improvements in solar plant performance evaluation, scaling up solar technology, and adopting innovative tendering approaches.

The 10th Parliamentary Committee on the performance evaluation of solar power projects in India acknowledged the absence of a foolproof mechanism to assess the performance of solar plants.

Here are some of the key recommendations from the report:

#1 Develop Tools to Determine Current Solar Potential

In India, solar plant potential is currently assessed using various software tools based on generation performance, long-term reliability, and economic parameters. The Committee recommended that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) complete the draft Solar Plant Rating Framework at the earliest so that pilot projects and field tests can proceed on schedule.

MNRE highlighted the need to use the latest technological tools to determine India’s current solar potential. It also shared that a committee headed by NISE is developing a Risk Priority Number (RPN) to assess the probability of plant failure and the likelihood of detecting such failures on a numeric scale.

The Committee also noted that a Cost Priority Number (CPN) is being explored to strengthen performance assessment based on generation, reliability, and economic parameters.

#2 Need for Skilled Manpower

The report emphasised the need to develop skilled manpower to meet India’s renewable energy targets. Only around 200 people have been trained under recent initiatives as of June 2025, which is far below the requirement. The Committee recommended that the Ministry of Power and POWERGRID accelerate skill development programmes to ensure adequate manpower in the transmission sector to meet 2030 targets.

#3 RoW Issues in Transmission Projects

Addressing the persistent Right of Way (RoW) challenge, the Committee emphasised the Ministry of Power’s guidelines requiring compensation of 200% of land value for the tower base area and 30% for the RoW corridor. For inter-state transmission lines, RoW compensation is to be paid at market rates.

The Committee urged the Ministry of Power to engage with all States to understand prevailing RoW issues in detail and encourage them to adopt the latest compensation guidelines to ensure smoother transmission of non-fossil power, particularly solar energy.

#4 Expanding Solar Domestic Manufacturing & Clean Tech Initiative 

Despite rapid solar capacity additions, India continues to lag in domestic manufacturing of key components such as polysilicon, ingots, and wafers. The report noted that India currently has no polysilicon manufacturing capability, even though it is a critical raw material for solar panels. A 2 GW ingot and wafer manufacturing facility was recently commissioned in Gujarat, but India remains heavily dependent on imports.

Concerning the import of solar equipment that is used in making solar panels, MNRE has furnished that for the financial year 2024-25, the import was as follows: 

The Committee recommended adequate government support until commercialisation for technologies that are currently at the R&D stage or facing slow adoption. This comes at a time when India is promoting floating solar, agri-voltaics, and advanced technologies such as perovskite and bifacial panels.

The Committee’s recommendation also aligns with India’s budgetary ‘Clean Tech Manufacturing Initiative’. The initiative, announced in the 2025–26 Budget, covers solar PV, transmission equipment, and grid-scale batteries. With NITI Aayog as the nodal agency, the Committee expects work under this initiative to begin soon.

#5 Need for BESS & Innovative Tendering Mechanisms

While renewable energy installations now account for 50% of India’s total installed capacity, the actual generation share — measured through the Capacity Utilisation Factor (CUF) — is only around 26%.

The Committee noted that India’s energy storage capacity needs serious expansion. Against 243 GW of installed renewable capacity, current storage capacity stands at only 5–5.5 GW. It recommended expanding support for storage-related R&D, including capital grants to premier institutions, to promote indigenisation and reduce costs.

The Committee also stressed the need to promote innovative tenders beyond solar-wind hybrids, including Round-the-Clock (RTC), Peak Power, and FDRE tenders. These tenders are more complex and involve storage, making them costlier and less widely adopted.

The committee's recommendations come at a time when the industry faces multiple challenges, even as it has made massive strides in terms of manufacturing base , especially modules and cells. Energy storage remains China driven, and the drop in prices of imports had led to a rush for aggressively priced storage bids. But the dependence on China continues to cast a shadow on the future of many of these bidders, should prices move up significantly, as unlikely as it sounds if one looks at the trends  on raw material costs for the Chinese manufacturers. Hence the push for indigenisation as fast as possible, including therough technologies that donot deoend on Chinese inputs. A far cry right now, but not an impossibility provided sustained focus and resources.