Cooperative ownership proposition can accelerate Adoption
By Debashree Chatterjee
In a recent report by Mercom mentions India has added 521 MW rooftop Solar capacity in the period April - Jun 2021, this surge in adoption was particularly attributed to the net-metering revision of 10kw to 500Kw. Government of India is also providing incentives for residential installations. But looking at India's Solar ambition, the efforts need to be more cohesive and structured. Community Solar may be one of the solutions.
There are major goals ahead of India, 450 GW renewable capacity (175 GW solar alone) by 2030 and pressure of International on India to achieve Carbon neutrality by 2050. Complication in EPC projects, land requirement, loss in transmission and expectation miss match makes solar economics less than viable for all the players. Adoption at an individual level holds the answer for solar success.
GOI has been actively working on various projects and mission to boost solar adoption domestic manufacturing, commissioning EPC projects, as well as adoption of rooftop solar. However, domestic challenges are multifold. To make economic sense to solar adoption, there is scope for deliberation in policy as well as implementation levels. Large scale projects grapple with various issues, lower yield, requirement of land parcels, transmission loss, bidding war, procedural delays, even bid cancellations, withdrawal of bids.
In the latest landmark event, John Kerry, Special US Envoy visiting India ahead of scheduled COP 26 meeting has put considerable pressure on the Indian government to achieve 'Net Zero' by 2050. Envoy further added that he expects more commitment from India in the upcoming COP26 Meet scheduled in Nov 2021.
Why rooftop?
Though it is universally established that the cost of solar power production is lower than the traditional sources, the loss in transmission is an issue environmentalists as well as governments are trying to battle. As per Cleantechnica report published in 2014, about 5-6% of power lost in transmission globally, that is about 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, lost and 1.2 trillion metric tons of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere.
A major Solar plant requires a big land parcel. As per a recent op-ed in Mongabay, to keep India's ambition of net zero emissions by 2050, India will require to use 2.5% of its land cover ~ 65,000 sq km, (almost the size of Arunachal Pradesh) which is not only huge land area, there are also various hurdles and cost involved. The Indian government has identified 10,800 sq km space for hybrid renewable energy projects. It is clear that the mammoth task of implementing a large project will also use up huge government resources.
Fortunately, Solar has a solution for the land mass requirement, unlike Hydro and wind it can be produced in smaller quantities in smaller units, unlike other traditional,closer to the consumption units that can address the transmission loss issue.
It is only reasonable that a significant portion of it should be derived from rooftop solar adoption. For rooftop to contribute substantially to India's solar mission, sustained efforts need to be made. In 2015, PM Modi had increased the solar power goal from 20GW to 100GW, of which 40% energy were to come from solar rooftop. But by 2020, solar rooftop merely reached 5.6GW (of 36 GW total capacity by end of 2020). Rooftop faced major policy and implementation hurdles. Net metering cap of 10kw seemed economically unviable. In a major positive step, In 2021, the net metering cap was revised to 500Kw, which may be seen as a big boost for rooftop solar adoption. But net metering provisions alone cannot drive the cause.
According to Bridge to India illustration above on Q2, 2021 report on solar installations in India, rooftop solar accounted for 15%. (GOI aims to have 40% contribution from Rooftop Solar).
In a separate initiative of boosting domestic manufacturing of solar panels and equipment, GOI has introduced a tariff barrier of 40% on the solar modules and 25% on cell imports from April 2022. However, this move likely to just increase the overall solar cost, as India is heavily dependent on solar equipment, this move will increase the overall cost of solar.
Rooftop ~ can be a community project success
India spend, a non-profit organization, pointed out in one of their reports that Nagpur, which enjoys 300 sunny days, and households get 5% benefit on property taxes, has very few solarized houses. Their survey pointed out that the cost of solar installations is high, tedious and poor service networks. Also, authorities managing the rooftop solar policy making and implementation changed frequently. Procedural and subsidy delay is also a common put-off for consumers.
Policy measures could be looked at incentivizing community solar projects through subsidies to consumers and tax benefits to sales and distribution of such projects. Incentives for training in Rooftop solar workers could result in better experience for the consumers and boost adoption.
Some other measures to boost the rooftop solar adoption could be making rooftop solar government buildings, railway stations and public facilities such as stadiums, malls, theatres. This move could positively impact the sentiments of urban and rural society addition to likely improvement in distribution and after sales service.
It is clear that solar adoption at the consumer level is highly encouraged, even consumers are willing to shift to solar, and however, few steps are necessary to boost solar adoption at the retail level. A few blogs in UK Energy research websites highlight the role of cooperatively owned Solar PV Panels. The time energy resource and space needed for solar panel installation and management can be difficult at the individual level. Community ownership can reduce the cost of ownership. It may positively impact distribution, servicing network, installations, quality checks/ certification mandatory for domestic sales, swift implementation, and servicing process for consumers.
Reference:
https://bridgetoindia.com/report/india-renewable-map-june-2021/
https://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/28/can-grid-loss/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/16/india-us-kerry-new-delhi-climate-cooperation/
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/expect-india-to-announce-more-goals-ahead-of-cop26-john-kerry-7509337/
https://india.mongabay.com/2021/09/for-net-zero-by-2050-india-needs-2-5-percent-of-its-land-for-clean-energy-installation/
https://www.indiaspend.com/development/rooftop-solar-energy-inconsistent-regulatory-policies-high-costs-patchy-implementation-subsidy-scheme-763796
https://ukerc.ac.uk/publications/fce-edinburgh-solar-cooperative/
The author is a student of the 30th cohort (May 2021) of our Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP). Views are personal and do not represent Takshashila’s policy recommendations.