Interesting insights from the list of MNRE off-grid Solar PV Channel Partners

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy periodically releases the list of Channel partners accredited by the ministry for off-grid and de-central Solar applications under the JNNSM. The latest list(as of 01.01.2013) is available here. The list has been getting longer over the last few months and some major solar EPCs are in the list.
A total of 171 companies including the likes of Sun Edison, Wipro Eco-energy, Mahindra EPC, Moser Baer, SELCO, Juwi, Bosch, Sterling and Wilson, Emmvee Solar and Reliance Industries Limited are accredited as Solar PV System Integrator(SI).5 companies have been accredited as Solar PV- RESCO(Renewable Energy Service Providing Companies). This list includes Surana ventures, Delta Power Solutions and Environ Energy Corp.
Larsen & Toubro(L&T) and Lanco Solar are both SI and RESCO.
In terms of the grading, about 40% of the companies (total 69) are graded as 3B, which means that these companies just about qualify for the accreditation. 25% of the companies(43) are graded as 2B whereas 20 companies are graded as 1A, which is the best grade.

Predictably, the companies with 1A grading are those companies(like Tata, Reliance, Wipro, Mahindra, etc) which have tremendous Performance Capability and Financial Strength.
When it comes to rating agencies for SIs, ICRA tops with 68 gradings, followed by CRISIL with 53. CARE has done 44 gradings and Fitch, 6. For RESCOs, ICRA and CARE have done 2 each and 1 was done by CRISIL.
For those not very familiar with the grading process, here are two good resources that explains the process well – one from ICRA(download here) and one from CARE(download here). The grading scale and grading parameters for the System Integrator(SI) and RESCO are reproduced from the ICRA document below.