The mandate for ALMM for solar PV cells from June 1, 2026 helped push up manufacturing with 5 gigawatts capacity being added during January-March 2026,
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The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has extended the deadline for renewable power project developers till July 23, 2026 to seek exemption from the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) List-II for solar PV cells, which came into effect on June 1.On May 25, the Ministry had clarified that there will be no extension in the ALMM list for solar PV cells. However, in order to protect investments already made in public interest, it allowed certain net-metering, open access and renewable energy power projects for time extension based on a case-to-case basis.Under this arrangement, the RE power project developers had to electronically submit their claims through a portal developed by the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) by June 30, 2026.“In view of the requests received in the Ministry for re-opening of the portal, the matter was examined in the Ministry and, it has been decided to re-open the portal for submission of applications up to July 23, 2026,” the MNRE said. Interested RE power developers who have not yet submitted their applications may submit the requisite claims/information through the NISE portal within the above-mentioned extended timeline, it added.The mandate for ALMM for solar PV cells from June 1, 2026 helped push up manufacturing with 5 gigawatts (GW) capacity being added during January-March 2026, JMK Research & Analytics said.“The growth in domestic cell manufacturing is largely driven by the upcoming implementation of ALMM List-II (ALCM) from June 2026 onwards, encouraging the manufacturers to strengthen local manufacturing capacities. Of the total capacity, around 27.23 GW is enlisted under ALCM,” it added.Policy certaintyA senior government official said the step to mandate ALMM for solar cells is to give policy certainty to the domestic manufacturing segment and investors. The government impressed upon the commercial & Industrial (C&I) sector that this mandate will come from June 1. It also started impressing the stakeholders to move towards meeting the targets.India added roughly 3 GW solar cell manufacturing capacity in the 2020 calendar year (CY), which got completely derailed due to the Covid pandemic in 2021. In 2022, the country added 1.3 GW, followed by 2.3 GW in 2023, 8 GW (2024) and 20.4 GW (2025).Published on July 13, 2026
