India: Centre's push driving the pace of residential solar installations

The rising need for cost savings, increasing awareness amongst residential consumers, and the strong push by the Central government are assisting in accelerating the pace of rooftop solar installation in India’s residential segment, cites the IEEFA (Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis) and JMK Research & Analytics.

As per the report, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Gujarat are the three most desirable states for residential rooftop solar installations.

The report’s co-author and IEEFA South Asia Director, Vibhuti Garg, notified that India offers a huge prospect for rooftop solar installations in residential spaces.

Vibhuti further stated that the increasing residential rooftop solar installations would soon spread across India, considering the robust policy push and burgeoning market demand.

It has also been reported that India’s residential rooftop solar segment is on the verge of substantial growth. The residential market is expected to reach 3.2GW of the installed capacity recorded in fiscal year (FY) 2023 from the 2GW (gigawatts) recorded in FY 2022.

Co-author Jyoti Gulia, JMK Research Founder, also added that given the demand-side drivers, consumer behavior has shifted drastically following Covid-19.

It is further revealed that in the pre-COVID era, the lack of consumer awareness was one of the major obstacles to adoption. But in the post-covid era, there has been a massive surge in demand supported by augmented consciousness about cost savings, and the environment.

India has been the world’s least expensive home solar power market for about ten years, despite the country’s slow pace of solarization in the residential sector.

For the record, in 2020, India’s average residential rooftop solar system cost was $658 per kilowatt (kW), decreasing by 73 percent from the 2013 level.

Compared to 2020, the residential rooftop solar cost in some of the leading residential markets, like Japan, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., was 3.3x to 6.4x that of India.

The report also adds that the recent push of the Central government to unveil a single national digital portal to simplify the residential rooftop solar installations process and reinforce a direct benefit transfer mechanism will increase the capacity addition.

Source credit - https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/centres-push-accelerates-pace-of-solar-installations-in-houses-report/94672176s