India's biggest solar farm/ installation of 40 MW completed in Kutch- What we need is Net Metering

Solar Power in India is growing at a rapid pace boosted by state and federal government subsidies. Besides the large energy deficit and falling Indian solar panel prices are also helping. Adani Power which is one the biggest power producers in India has completed a 40 MW solar farm in Gujarat which makes it the largest /biggest solar farm in India right now.

Note the Indian solar projects are growing continuously and with the possible addition of 1000 mw of solar energy in 2012 we will see much larger solar installations with 100 MW solar farms being planned. Besides solar thermal power plants are bigger in size in general. While the growth of big solar installations is good, India really needs to move to rooftop small solar installations and off grid solar promotion.

Solar Energy incentives in most of the developed solar markets in Europe have clearly shifted their preference to distributed small rooftop solar installations on residences.This is because it reduces the need for expensive power generation infrastructure,improves reliability and puts money in the hands of the common citizens.Spain,Germany and Italy which are the 3 biggest markets in the world have done this.India however has not paid any focus to rooftop solar installations except for Delhi.Electricity in India is not only expensive but also highly unreliable and of low quality.Low voltages and blackouts of 10 hours are not uncommon. Having a reliable home based source of power would be attractive to most people in India even at higher costs (note electricity tariffs have been outgrowing inflation).It would also lead to reduced losses in the power transmission which is the highest in the world at around 30%. The advantages of promoting residential solar is much more however the policymakers have not given enough thought with half of the subsidies going to Solar Thermal Technology which is fast losing out to Solar PV technology. India’s solar policy makes it clear that the decision makers do not have enough knowledge about the developments in this fast paced solar energy sector to make the optimum decisions.

The biggest policy change that is needed in net metering which allows solar power generated at home to feed the grid.

Net Metering is a very important Electricity Policy for the promotion of Distributed Electricity Production from Renewable Energy Sources especially Solar Energy. All consumer establishments connected to the power grid have an electricity meter installed which measure the amount of power consumed during a month in Kilowatt Hours (KwH) which is known as one unit. The power utility compiles the data for power consumption during 1 month and sends a bill which is usually the number of KwH multiplied by the retail electricity rate which can vary widely from 10c/KwH to around 35c/KwH depending on the geography.

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