Interim Budget push to residential solar roof-tops

In the Interim Budget 2024-2025, Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of Finance announced that one crore households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units of free electricity every month, which will help to push rooftop solar installations for households.

Despite India pushing for a massive 500 GW renewable energy transition since 2014, as of the end of July 2023, only 2.2 gigawatts (GW) of rooftop installations were installed in Indian homes. About 12 GW has been installed on various rooftops, of which 87% are for commercial and industrial purposes. The government intended to have 100 GW by 2022 — 60 GW from utility-scale projects and 40 GW from rooftop solar, say sources adding that the currently available incentive schemes are more favourable for commercial-scale roof-top installations than households.

The FM's announcement follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to launch a scheme to electrify one crore households with solar electricity, soon after the consecration of the Ram idol in Ayodhya. ''Our government will launch ‘Pradhanmantri Suryodaya Yojana’ with the target of installing rooftop solar on one crore houses. This will not only reduce the electricity bill of the poor and middle class but will also make India self-reliant in the field of energy,” the PM tweeted after the ceremony.

Nirmala Sitharaman in her speech says ''benefits could be savings up to fifteen to eighteen thousand rupees annually for households from free solar electricity and selling the surplus to the distribution companies and will also help in charging of electric vehicles''.

Other benefits could be entrepreneurship opportunities for a large number of vendors for supply and installation, and employment opportunities for the youth with technical skills in manufacturing, installation and maintenance, she says.

Rahul Walawalkar, Founder and President of India Energy Storage Alliance and President & MD, of Customized Energy Solutions (CES), says the Pradhanmantri Suryodaya Yojana will result in 20-30 GW solar rooftop deployment in India in the coming years. ''We have also witnessed a strong opportunity for integrating solar and energy storage to ensure that this distributed solar is integrated into the distribution network seamlessly and would create an opportunity for 50-80 GWh of energy storage deployment'' he says.