“To improve rooftop adoption, perhaps greater incentives are needed for the segment of consumers with the lowest (electricity consumption) of 0-1 kilowatt.”
| Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar
India’s low uptake of rooftop solar methods – typically touted because the pathway to wash, decentralised electrical energy –is basically resulting from restricted electrical energy consumption and current subsidies for coal-fired electrical energy that makes even subsidised solar energy costly, suggests the outcomes of a first-of-its-kind study spanning 14,000 households throughout 21 states.
The evaluation was carried out by researchers on the Council for Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a Delhi-based thinktank and made public on Thursday.
Were all rooftops in India’s estimated 25-30 crore households to have solar panels put in, it will quantity to 637 gigawatt (1 gigawatt (GW) is 1000 megawatt (MW)) – or about 5 instances the whole renewable power capability already put in. However have been solar panel installations restricted to account for the electrical energy really consumed by households, this could fall 80% to about 118 GW. India presently has about 11 GW of put in rooftop solar capability, of which solely 2.7 GW are in residential items and the remainder in business or industrial areas. The authorities aspired to a goal of putting in 40GW.
Thus, the subsidies however by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the primary promoter of unpolluted power adoption, rooftop solar methods are still too costly for the overwhelming majority of Indian shoppers of electrical energy, based on the evaluation.
“Approximately 80%-85% of consumers use about 1200 units of electricity annually of which a large part is already free due to state subsidies (on electricity),” Neeraj Kuldeep, Senior Programme Lead, CEEW, and one of many authors informed The Hindu. “To improve rooftop adoption, perhaps greater incentives are needed for the segment of consumers with the lowest (electricity consumption) of 0-1 kilowatt.
Currently the cost of installing a 1-2 KW system is about ₹43,000 per unit, according to MNRE estimates. Units up to 3KW are eligible for a subsidy of about ₹14,000 per unit.
More than 60% of technical potential is concentrated in seven states in India. A significant decline in technical potential (or the amount of solar power that can be feasibly installed) is witnessed in states such as Assam, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand due to the high share of households with low energy consumption per sq ft, the study notes.
Moreover, rural areas show higher technical potential based on residential rooftop area (363 GW) compared to urban areas across states (274 GW).
“India’s solar energy revolution–going from 2,000 MW of solar power capacity in 2010 to 72,018 MW now–must reach households too to reach its full potential,” Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, CEEW, mentioned in a press release, “But to get there, residents must get the right price and attractive incentives and enjoy a convenient experience, which can then spur the markets to create the right products and capacities for homes.”
