India to boost Rooftop Solar with another 1 GW Tender

The Indian government is pressing hard on growing solar rooftop capacity, which remains a huge laggard as compared to the utility scale solar segment. The government has recently come up with a huge 500 MW tender, which saw decent though not enthusiastic participation from a number of solar developers. Now it is coming out with another huger tender of 1000 MW to install solar rooftop panels on government buildings, both on a capex and a PPA model.

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This tender will be divided into 3 parts:

Part A – 400 MW of capex for greater than 25 kw rooftop solar systems size

Part B – 400 MW of PPA for greater than 25 kw rooftop solar systems size

Part C – 200 MW of capex for lower than 25 kw rooftop solar systems size

The Indian government is using the tender and reverse auction route to increase penetration of rooftop solar energy in the country. India has managed a lot of success in the grid space using this method and now it wants to replicate it in the rooftop solar space. Note the government has introduced a number of incentives and subsidies, but failed to grow the rooftop solar capacity. There are number of “on the ground hurdles”, which has led to the failure of growth in the solar rooftop capacity. A strong government push is needed to overcome these hurdles and this is a good step.

Also Read about the Rooftop Friendly states in India.

However, putting rooftop solar in government buildings will not allow the growth of the private sector solar segment. Solar energy is already cheaper than grid in a number of places in the country, however the problems with contract enforcement, financing and utility resistance has prevented the rooftop solar segment to grow at the rates that was envisaged by the government.

While these large tenders will definitely give the sector a start, what the government needs to do is focus on these specific hurdles which will allow the growth of a self-sustaining sector in the country.