In a boost to India’s rooftop solar programme, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday scaled up the budget for grid connected solar rooftop systems to ₹5,000 crore from ₹600 crore.

This will be utilised over the next five years up to 2019-20 under the National Solar Mission and support installation of 4,200 MW of rooftop solar power systems.

“The capital subsidy of 30 per cent will be provided for general category States and Union territories and 70 per cent for special category States including North Eastern States of Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Lakshwadeep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands. There will be no subsidy for commercial and industrial establishments in the private sector since they are eligible for other benefits such as accelerated depreciation, custom duty concessions, excise duty exemptions and others,” an official statement said.

This capacity of 4,200 MW will come up through residential, government, social and institutional sectors and aim to create a market for rooftop solar systems, build the confidence of consumers and enable balance capacity through market mode to achieve the target of 40,000 MW by 2022, the statement added.

Between 2012-13 and May 2015, ₹582.50 crore had been sanctioned under the Grid Connected Rooftop and Small Solar Power scheme. Of this, ₹9.28 crore has been released so far, according to data on the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy website.

Earlier this year, the Centre had revised the targets of the National Solar Mission to 100,000 MW by 2022 from the earlier target of 20,000 MW. Out of the total target, 40,000 MW is to come through grid connected solar rooftop systems.

So far, 26 States have notified their regulations to provide net metering/gross metering facilities to support grid-connected solar rooftops installations. Such systems can generate power at about ₹6.50 a unit, which is cheaper than the diesel genet based electricity generation.

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