BIS certification deadline extended for solar inverter to June 30, 2021
MNRE has extended the deadline for the self-certification of solar PV inverters from December 31, 2020, to June 20, 2021.
The deadline for the self-certification of solar PV inverters has been extended by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) via a notification.
The date has been extended to June 30, 2021, from the earlier set deadline of December 31, 2020, subject to the condition that manufacturers have valid International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), certificates and test reports from international testing laboratories.
The Government on 05 September 2017 issued ‘Solar PV Systems, Devices and Components Goods Order, 2017’ for mandatory registration requirements with six products included in the schedule.
In order to ensure the best quality of the components is being used in the country’s solar projects, the government mandated that the laboratories conduct tests for compulsory registration with the BIS.
However, the inverter manufacturers were facing challenges – mainly due to ambiguity in the BIS certification process. Some of the other obstacles to inverter suppliers were the dearth of testing laboratories, high testing cost, missing guidelines, costs of BIS certification, and the time-taking process.
The Order was extended to 16 April 2018, following discussions with many stakeholders, including the Indian Standards Bureau (BIS).
The time limit has been extended several times since the notice was issued on 5 September 2017. Initially, the date has been extended to 20 September 2018 and subsequently to 30 June 2019. Again there were two additional extensions made, first up to 30 June 2020 that was later extended up to 31 December 2020.
Bringing forth the following constraint and issues like the Covid-19 pandemic, high testing fee along with a limited number of testing facilities that are capable of testing inverters up to 150kW capacity – The Solar Energy Federation along with Power Products Manufacturers and Traders Association, and Industries sought for more time for compliance with the ministry.
On the basis of the request, the ministry has once again extended the deadline to June 30, 2021, for self-certification, taking into consideration all the above-given factors.
