Solar rooftops plan worth Rs 5,000 crore a leap towards clean energy
The major decision by the Union cabinet to approve Rs 5,000-crore subsidy for rooftop solar power generation is a major leap towards a clean energy future.
The decision of the Union cabinet to provide Rs 5,000 crore for residential and institutional solar rooftops in the next five years will give major fillip to renewable energy, provided power distribution companies ensure speedy payment to consumers.
The major decision by the Union cabinet to approve Rs 5,000-crore subsidy for rooftop solar power generation is a major leap towards a clean energy future. (HT File Photo)
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The new scheme, providing capital subsidy of 30% to general category states and 70% to special category states of the north-east, could potentially revolutionise decentralised energy generation in India as it did in Germany, where solar energy accounts for about 40% of the total energy generation compared to India’s 6%.
Looking to fulfil India’s commitment under the Paris climate agreement, the government has set an ambitious target of generating 100,000 MW of electricity from solar panels by 2022.
Since the announcement of the target in 2014, as many as 26 states have released net metering (two-directional energy meter) policy. But the response of discoms and consumers has been lukewarm due to the high set up cost.
Setting up a 5 kV system capable of providing electricity to a two-bedroom house with an air conditioner could set you back Rs 5.5 lakh without batteries. With batteries, that cost goes up by another Rs 1.5 lakh.
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Setting up a 5 kV system capable of providing electricity to a two-bedroom house with an air conditioner could set you back Rs 5.5 lakh without batteries. With batteries, that cost goes up by another Rs 1.5 lakh.
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“Unless there is easy finance or subsidy available, people will not opt for solar rooftops,” said an official of the ministry of new and renewable energy, adding that the latest scheme solves that problem to a certain extent.
The key to success of solar rooftops, as was seen in Germany, will be regular payments to consumers who adopt the new system. However, the experience in India has so far been far from ideal.
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“Most power distribution companies are cash strapped and don’t have money to make payments. If people don’t get money on time, the solar rooftop scheme may not take off as the government has expected,” said K Srinivas, CEO of NGO Vasudha Foundation.
The states, on the other hand, are geared up to absorb the additional incentive from the Centre, with Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Rajasthan making it mandatory for all government buildings to install rooftop solar panels. Earlier this year, Haryana made solar rooftops compulsory for all new buildings while Kerala announced financial incentives for the same.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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