India’s Ministry of Renewable Energy (MNRE) has started soliciting feedback from stakeholders on the draft ALMM guidelines for solar cells and plans to implement the guidelines from April 2026.
MNRE introduced the ALMM policy to protect India’s domestic solar industry from the impact of Chinese imports. This policy sets up a non-tariff barrier, allowing domestic manufacturers to capture a larger market share.
MNRE has released the ALMM list for solar modules. The modules on this list meet the requirements of the Bureau of Indian Standards and also meet sectoral efficiency criteria. As of April 1, 2024, only modules and manufacturers on this list will be eligible to participate in government-supported projects. Currently, the list includes over 50 GW of module capacity.
Projects that comply with ALMM must purchase solar modules from the list and use solar cells from the same list. Projects that have bid prior to the issuance of the order are exempt from this requirement.
According to the “State of Solar PV Manufacturing in India 2024” recently released by Mercom India, based on a capacity of 5.8 GW in December 2023, India’s solar cell capacity is expected to exceed 75 GW by 2026.
