Rooftop solar gets major boost with PM Surya Ghar Yojna

Through the implementation of the Yojna, GOI intends to produce 1000 billion units through installed capacity, which would help mitigate 720 million tons of Co2 over its installation lifetime, which is 25 years.

As the solar sector continues to boom in India, this growth has been and is primarily driven by Utility-scale installations, which are rapidly adding to installed capacity. However, contrary to the sector’s advantage, which can benefit all stakeholders, Rooftop solar (RTS) installations, i.e. distributed solar generation, have been lagging severely (11GW) as compared to the target set (40GW) under the Government of India’s renewable energy targets. 

In the last few years, many new schemes have been announced, and policy decisions have been made to smooth out installations so that RTS capacity can improve. However, the results have been mixed, with few states being able to outdo the target based on state initiative while the rest of the country severely lags in installation targets.

Announcement of PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojna

The announcement of PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojna in February ’24 was a welcome step to accelerate this sector, with additional capital outlay to be disbursed as part of Centra Financial Assistance to make RTS more affordable to residents and Residential societies. A budgetary sanction of 75,00 crore was done in the last FY for this scheme, with a lion’s share of 65,700 crore aligned for Residential consumers followed by DISCOMs, and some budget was even kept for creating awareness and outreach.

The guidelines of the scheme are expected after completing ongoing elections. However, a few straightforward things are that this scheme would be driven on a PAN India basis by utilising the National Portal, which has been used in earlier residential subsidy programmes and is currently used for submission of applications. The primary aim of this scheme would be to achieve one crore rooftop solar system installations in the residential sector and, secondly, provide free/low-cost electricity to 1 crore households up to 300 units per month post installations. While doing this, GOI intends to produce 1000 billion units through installed capacity, which would help mitigate 720 million tons of CO2 over its installation lifetime, i.e. 25 years.

Subsidy and installation growth

Over and achieving the tangible benefits will contribute to developing a local ecosystem for solar installations, creating multiple opportunities for youth in terms of manufacturing various components required for installation, actual installation services, and operation and maintenance post-installation as intangible benefits. 

The national portal would become the central nerve of the scheme, with loads of information and tools available for the beneficiary to choose from, including installation vendors. CFA would be disbursed directly to the beneficiary’s account or his loan account, thereby making the process smooth and quick.

As the scheme is designed to widen the installation base in the residential segment, a maximum CFA  of 60% of the benchmark cost has been allocated to a category of RTS below 2 KWp. If a consumer wishes to avail of subsidy up to 3 KWp, he would get a primary benefit of 60% and 40% on the additional 1 KWp of CFA and no CFA for consumers adding capacity beyond 3 KWp. Housing societies / Resident welfare associations can also participate in this scheme for common facilities / EV charging setups up to 500 KWp system size, availing CFA of 40 per cent of the benchmark cost.

Spokesperson:Amit Barve, Head of Solar- PEWIN, Panasonic Life Solutions India