Chandigarh: With less than four years left to meet its target of installing 40,000 megawatt (MW) of rooftop solar power capacity by 2022, India has installed just about 2,538 MW as of March 2018, a full 94 per cent short of target.
At this rate, missing the target is a foregone conclusion, which also jeopardises the country's overall solar target of 100 gigawatt (GW, equal to 1,000 MW) by 2022.
Rooftop solar has been a key part of the recent renewables revolution around the world, and its appeal is clear - residential, commercial and industrial buildings can generate their own electricity, which is green and potentially less expensive than the power they draw from the grid. What's more, they can inject excess power back into the grid and get paid for it.
India's ambitious target, in fact, is backed by a 30 per cent subsidy for residential buildings. But this has failed to enthuse home owners, the majority of whom pay small electricity bills and find the cost of solar equipment prohibitive in comparison.
Commercial and industrial building owners have shown more enthusiasm as their large power bills justify the expense of solar power systems, even though they get no subsidy. But here, policy and regulation are blocking the way, say a range of industry participants, including installation businesses, consultants and power distribution companies (discoms).
"The government needs to do much more if it is serious about the 40 GW target," Sanjeev Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO of Amplus Solar, one of the largest rooftop solar installations companies in India, told IndiaSpend.
After India announced the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in 2010, rooftop installations went from zero to grow annually at a compound annual rate of 117 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18.
In 2015, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy announced its 40 GW target and subsidy for home-owners, and began to urge state governments to announce policies to enable net-metering, a billing mechanism that enables power consumers to be paid for injecting renewable power into the grid.
The segment has since grown to install 2,538 MW as of March 31, according to the consultancy Bridge to India. This gives rooftop solar a 10 per cent share in India's overall solar capacity installation, with large-scale and off-grid solar installations cumulatively nearing 22,000 MW during the same period.
On the plus side, the industry is at 'an inflection point' right now, Agarwal of Amplus Solar said. "Rooftop solar is a well-established, well-understood sub-sector now, not the hard sell it was when we started four years ago," he said. "The technology is well established, and costing has come down 40-50 per cent to a level where adoption is quick."
The earliest and most eager adopters of rooftop solar have been commercial and industrial users, accounting for 544 MW and 1,088 MW of capacity installation, as per Bridge to India. "They have large rooftops and large consumption, and are able to break even in 3-4 years," Kanika Khanna, Director, SunkalpEnergy, which brings together rooftop owners and solar system installers, told IndiaSpend.
