MUMBAI: Over 25 crore households across India have the potential to deploy 637 GW of solar energy capacity on rooftops, according to a new independent report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) released today. Further, the CEEW report found that deploying just one-third of this total solar technical potential could support the entire electricity demand of India’s residential sector (~310 TWh).
However, the technical potential reduces to one-fifth (118 GW) after factoring in the current electricity consumption of households. Most residential consumers fall into low-consumption slabs and solar may not be economically feasible for them without financial support even though it is technically possible. The potential reduces further to 11 GW when no capital subsidy is considered, the payback period for rooftop solar is restricted to five years and we factor in consumers’ willingness to buy rooftop solar. However, with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s capital subsidy, the potential increases to 32 GW making the solar systems feasible for more consumers. Currently, India has installed 11 GW of rooftop solar capacity, of which only 2.7 GW is in the residential sector.
