600 MW of solar rooftop installations on homes by 2018
Going by the 2011 Census, India has around 330 million houses, with 140 million houses having proper roofs which can accommodate on an average 1-3kWp of solar PV system. Among the 140 million houses, around 130 million are having two rooms. Besides, there are other commercial buildings, shopping complexes and offices that can accommodate larger solar PV capacities. Taking into account the houses with two rooms, approximately 25000 MW of solar capacity can be installed by putting solar panels on 20 per cent of the roofs.
With quality sunshine around the year, and huge availability of rooftop space in the country, India can kick out the power woes by installing solar panels on them. As of now, there is clear lack of awareness and the will to harness the potential that could help the country address the issue of energy security to a greater extent.
A market study on the residential solar segment in India and estimates that this market will grow up to 600 MW by 2018. This equates to at least 200,000 residential consumers adopting solar in the next 5 years. We arrived at this estimate based on factors such as irradiation, power demand-supply situation and future effect of net metering (exchange of power from the grid). (Source: BRIDGE TO INDIA)
With quality sunshine around the year, and huge availability of rooftop space in the country, India can kick out the power woes by installing solar panels on them. As of now, there is clear lack of awareness and the will to harness the potential that could help the country address the issue of energy security to a greater extent.
A market study on the residential solar segment in India and estimates that this market will grow up to 600 MW by 2018. This equates to at least 200,000 residential consumers adopting solar in the next 5 years. We arrived at this estimate based on factors such as irradiation, power demand-supply situation and future effect of net metering (exchange of power from the grid). (Source: BRIDGE TO INDIA)
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi are expected to be early adopters of residential solar primarily due to high power tariffs in Maharashtra and Delhi and power deficit in Tamil Nadu. The adoption rate is mainly driven by need for reliable power and does not take government incentive into consideration. That indeed would be an added advantage, given the high cost of rooftop systems. Government support improves the viability of these rooftop plants. For example- recently, Tamil Nadu announced a subsidy of 50% to install a solar rooftop plant of 1kW (without batteries) for residential systems for the first 10,000 applicants. Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh will also become key states going forward because of the high power demand in these states.
However, the distributed solar market in India is very fragmented with lots of small, regional players. This creates a problem for end consumers as to how to differentiate various vendors and their product offerings.
