Indian Rooftop Solar : The Sorry State Of Affairs
Although statistics show that rooftop potential of in India stands at 124,000 MW, India added only 864 MW of rooftop solar capacity in 2017 and the total capacity stands at around 2.2 GW.
Despite subsidies, initiatives and Government support, states in India like Maharashtra (with 237 Mw), Tamil Nadu (with 191 Mw), Rajasthan (129 Mw),Karnataka (125 Mw) and Gujarat (103 MW) which has the highest installed rooftop solar capacity in the country.
The reason behind this delay in rooftop solar growth includes delays in policy enforcement, lack of clarity in policies, lack of flexible financing, and lack of awareness etc.Due to these issues, cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and even Delhi, which had shown promise as becoming a favorable environment for rooftop solar growth, have failed to produce results.
Delhi has an estimated solar potential of 1.25 GW, while the city’s official target is 1 GW by 2020 and 2GW by 2025, surprisingly, the city has installed only 95 MW of solar rooftop capacity. And about 3MW of that capacity is from residential installations.
Surveys and polls show significant public interest in accepting solar. However, lack of awareness of schemes, policies, details on the benefits of solar energy, has been the hurdle in the path of spontaneous rooftop solar adoption.
Solution in our view from various international adoption learning’s are – India needs to focus on more fund generation, offering financial support before commissioning the plant, better net-metering implementation and enforcement, raising awareness, and supporting domestic manufacturing to control the cost and quality of the solar components.
Source: cleanfuture.co.in
