National solar rooftop PV policy analysis
Student name: Ms Kittur Shweta Mahaveer
Guide: Dr V V N Kishore
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: MP Ensystems Advisory P Ltd., Mumbai
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Mahesh Patankar
Abstract: A lot of cities and towns in India have begun to experience considerable surge in their
daytime peak electricity demand. It has become a challenging task for the utilities to combat
with this accretion. These utilities mainly supply power to the consumers purchased from
centrally generating stations. In centralized power generation, the efficiency is around
19±3% which is aggregate efficiency of plant, auxiliary power and T&D losses. This meager
figure puts a question as to why cannot energy be produced close to the point of use by using
locally available resources. With 30% gap in demand and supply, a decentralized power
generation shall be able to cope up with the inadequate transmission networks thereby
smoothening the peaking costs. The policy support given to the MW/GW grid connected
solar power plants, helped the renewable sector to contribute a significant share in the overall
energy product mix. With dynamics moving towards distributed energy generation, solar
rooftop PV systems are gaining momentum. The solar rooftop policies of Gujarat
(Gandhinagar rooftop program), Tamil Nadu and Kerala (ANERT) have attracted the
manufacturers and project developers to enter this segment and avail the benefits of
decentralized energy generation. With the year on year decrease in solar system prices,
presently the LCOE of solar PV systems has reached to INR 6.9 which is competitive with
existing conventional electricity tariff. But the inept policies have failed to instigate the
consumer’s willingness to adopt this kind of sustainable mode of electricity generation. This
report discusses the technological and financial advantages of adapting to a distributed mode
of energy generation from the prospective of residential household consumers. On examining
few solar rooftop case studies, it was realized that a grid connected solar rooftop system with
net metering proves to be viable in current market conditions. Grid connectivity acts as a
major hurdle to popularize grid connection of small sized solar rooftop systems owing to the
rigid nature of the Indian grid. Introduction of grid interconnection regulations at the LT
distribution networks would preferably ease the interconnection procedures and tackle the
issue of grid connectivity of small sized systems.
Keywords: Decentralized generation, LCOE, grid connectivity, net metering.
