How well is India tapping its rooftop solar potential?
- June 27, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
How well is India tapping its rooftop solar potential?
Sub: Schemes
Sec: Renewable energy
Context:
- The country’s installed RTS capacity increased by 2.99 GW in 2023-2024, the highest growth reported in a year.
Statistics regarding RTS:
- As of March 31 this year, the total installed RTS capacity in India was 11.87 GW, per the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
- In 2015, the government revised this target to 100 GW by 2022, including a 40 GW RTS component, with specific yearly targets for each State and Union Territory.
- In December 2022, India achieved an installed RTS capacity of about 7.5 GW.
- It extended the deadline for the 40 GW target to 2026.
What is the RTS programme?
- The Indian government launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in January 2010.
- It was the first major initiative to promote the growth of solar energy.
- The main objective was to produce 20 GW of solar energy (including RTS) in three phases: 2010-2013, 2013-2017, and 2017-2022.
- Rooftop solar (RTS) has the potential to revolutionize India’s energy landscape, offering a sustainable, decentralized, and affordable solution to meet the country’s growing electricity needs and making consumers self-reliant.
- Based on the RTS capacities calculated as of March 31, 2024, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan have taken big strides.
- India’s first solar-powered village, is in Gujarat and has 1,300 RTS systems of 1 kW each.
- Maharashtra, with an RTS capacity of 2,072 MW, is one of the top performing states owing to its robust solar policies and conducive regulatory environment.
- Rajasthan being the largest state by area and with a high solar irradiance, boasts of the highest RTS potential in the country, with a capacity of 1,154 MW.
Various schemes regarding solar rooftop:
The ‘Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar:
- Muft Bijli Yojana’ is a flagship initiative to fit 1 crore households with RTS systems and help them get up to 300 units of free electricity every month.
- The scheme Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, with an investment of over Rs. 75,000 crores, aims to light up 1 crore households by providing up to 300 units of free electricity every month.
- The scheme aims to incentivise the adoption of solar energy among residential consumers, promoting sustainability and reducing reliance on conventional energy sources.
- It is a grid connected rooftop solar PV system, where the DC power generated from a solar panel converted to AC power using a power conditioning unit/Inverter and is fed to the grid.
- An average system size of 2 kW for the targeted households will result in a total RTS capacity addition of 20 GW.
- Under the ‘Suryamitra’ (solar PV technician) training programme initiated in 2015, more than 51,000 technicians had been trained as of December 2022.
- As the implementation of the ‘Muft Bijli Yojana’ goes into full swing, RTS policies including net-metering regulations, grid-integration standards, and building codes should be reviewed and updated.
- The virtual net-metering and group net-metering options need to be fast-tracked for consumers with inadequate roof space for RTS installations.