Solar Thermal Federation of India has made a plea to Secretary, MNRE seeking to extend the PLI scheme to solar thermal components manufacturing.
India is amongst the top 5 global solar thermal markets since the last decade as per study undertaken by the International Energy Agency Task Force on Solar Thermal.
India is presently placed third in solar water heater market after China and Turkey. It has already showcased success for heating applications in multiple industry segments requiring heat up to 150 deg.C.
India’s annual solar water heater market is average 1.5 million sq. metes and is dominated by evacuated tube collector type solar water heaters. These evacuated tubes are completely imported. Every sq. metre of solar collector requires 10 tubes, making India’s average annual demand for evacuated tubes at 1,50,00,000 (1.5 crore) and in monetary terms is valued at 250 crore said Jaideep Malaviya, founder and secretary-general of Solar Thermal Federation of India.
Extending PLI scheme to solar thermal will bring some economies of scale on the final cost of system and also create several thousand jobs. Besides, the government can also earn revenue from taxes on manufacturing he added.
