India to blacklist developers of green energy projects that miss deadlines

India will blacklist developers of renewable energy projects that fail to hit deadlines as the nation rushes to add vast amounts of clean electricity.

Officials will exclude companies that overshoot project completion dates from government contracts for between three and five years, according to a letter sent to organizations involved in the sector by the renewable energy ministry and seen by Bloomberg.

The renewable energy ministry didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. The details were reported earlier by Reuters.

India needs a rapid acceleration in the deployment of solar and wind projects to meet a goal to almost triple clean power capacity to 500 gigawatts by the end of this decade.

The country has a current pipeline of about 4,842 renewables projects, and leading developers include ReNew Energy Global Plc, Tata Power Co. and Adani Green Energy Ltd., according to data complied by BloombergNEF.

The proposal follows plans by Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh to temporarily remove curbs on imports of solar equipment, to ensure a lack of local manufacturing capacity doesn’t slow down deployments.

Companies will be given a chance to explain reasons for any project delays, the ministry said in its letter. The message was addressed to Solar Energy Corp. of India, NTPC Ltd. and NHPC Ltd. —three agencies responsible for auctioning federal government tenders for renewables projects.