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Thursday, March 8

Op-Ed: Rooftop Solar - The Hindu (08.03.18)


(Guidelines for Reader: Latest Op-Ed First; Verbatim Compilation of The Hindu Op-Ed; Best to read in the order of oldest to latest article to get a comprehensive understanding; Consider repetition to be revision)

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Current Op-Ed

Rooftop energy: on boosting solar power (08.03.018)

Bengaluru’s aerial mission to produce a three dimensional map of rooftop solar power potential using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data can give this key source of power a big boost. Similar mapping exercises have been carried out in several countries over the past few years to assess how much of a city’s power needs can be met through rooftop solar installations. A survey helps determine usable rooftops, separating them from green spaces, and analyses the quality of the solar resource. With steady urbanisation, solar maps of this kind will help electricity utilities come up with good business cases and investment vehicles and give residents an opportunity to become partners in the effort. An initiative to rapidly scale up rooftop solar installations is needed if the target of creating 40 GW of capacity connected to the grid by 2022 is to be realised. Rooftop solar power growth has demonstrated an overall positive trend, including in the fourth quarter of 2017 when tenders for 220 MW represented a doubling of the achievement in the previous quarter. But this will need to be scaled up massively to achieve the national target. Going forward, domestic policy has to evaluate the impact of factors such as imposition of safeguard duty and anti-dumping duty on imports, and levy of the goods and services tax on photovoltaic modules. The industry is apprehensive that the shine could diminish for the sector during the current year, unless policy is attuned to the overall objective of augmenting capacity.

Major solar projects that connect to the grid often face the challenge of land acquisition and transmission connectivity. This has led to a delay in planned capacity coming on stream during 2017: nearly 3,600 MW did not get commissioned during the last quarter, out of a scheduled 5,100 MW. What this underscores is the importance of exploiting rooftop solar, which represents only about 11% of the country’s 19,516 MW total installed capacity at the start of 2018. The Centre should come up with incentives, given the enormous investment potential waiting to be tapped and the real estate that can be rented. The southern States and Rajasthan together host the bulk of national solar infrastructure on a large scale. With some forward-looking policymaking, they can continue to lead by adding rooftop capacity. India, which is a founder-member of the International Solar Alliance launched in Paris during the climate change conference more than two years ago, must strive to be a global leader. Initiatives such as the Bengaluru mapping project can contribute to assessments of both real potential and risk. This is crucial for projects on a large scale involving significant exposure for financial institutions, including banks. With ongoing improvements to solar cell efficiency and battery technology, rooftops will only get more attractive in the future.

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Older Op-Eds

Solar sunrise (16.02.17)

By finalising a bid price of 3.29 per kwH over 25 years (and 2.97 a kwH in the first year), the 750-MW Rewa ultra mega solar power project marks a watershed in India’s solar power programme. It is the first project to breach the 4-kwH barrier (the lowest tariff prior to this was 4.34/kwH), thanks essentially to panel costs, which account for 40 per cent of the fixed costs, falling by 25-30 per cent worldwide in 2016. The winning bidders for three units at the park, Mahindra Renewables, ACME Solar Holdings and Solengeri Power, prevailed over 18 others, affirming that solar power is a truly happening sector. What makes this bid unique is the enabling role played by the Madhya Pradesh government. It not only provided guarantees for grid availability and payment of dues but also time to bidders to familiarise themselves with the site, and enough time —18 months against the usual 12 months — to set up their projects. While the bids essentially involve a bet on global trends in panel prices, there is little reason to believe that these technology-led advances will be reversed in the foreseeable future. India’s solar installations have grown remarkably in the last two years, with more than half of its 10-GW installed capacity having come up since April 2015. This trend promises to continue, with 10 GW expected to come up in 2017-18 alone. Even if India reaches only 70 per cent of the targeted 100-GW solar by 2022, it will be a game-changer. Solar power accounts for just 2.5 per cent of total installed capacity in power at present, but this may look very different five years from now.

At 3/kwh, solar poses a threat not just to wind, whose tariffs are in the range of 4/kwH but even coal, whose price outlook over the next two decades cannot be easily predicted. The Government must revisit the viability of future investments in both wind and thermal power; uncertainties over coal prices, as well as the financial health of discoms, more generally speaking, pose risks.

However, the solar story has some grey areas. The impact of GST on project costs is not known, unless these are placed in the zero-per cent bracket. It is unclear whether the bids and contracts have taken this into account. Land could account for a major share of costs, unless rooftop solar (which accounts for just 1-GW capacity) gathers momentum. Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh account for 60 per cent of solar installations as land is quite easily available in these States. The discoms should facilitate open access to large consumers, as stipulated under the Electricity Act, so that society benefits from the falling trend in power prices. But finally, India has most to gain from decentralised rooftop solar and medium-scale plants to meet rural demands. This can resolve last-mile electricity access issues and usher in numerous socio-economic benefits.

Reviving rooftop solar (27.12.17)

There is no better way to illustrate how much out of kilter things are in India’s rooftop solar programme than to juxtapose two figures. Against a target of 10,000 MW to be achieved by March 31, 2018, the country had 845 MW installed as of end-October this year. A failure of this order cannot but rankle and the Government has put out a ‘concept note’ for public comments, which outlines the Centre’s thinking on how to fix things. The note recognises that the biggest hurdle to mass roll-out of rooftop solar plants is the electricity distribution companies (discoms), most of which are State government-owned. These discoms have provided languid support to rooftop projects because of their instinct of self-preservation. The discoms stare at instant financial turmoil if well-paying industrial and commercial customers get their own sources of energy. As such, these companies have effectively derailed their customers’ rooftop ambitions by refusing to buy any surplus power from them. Therefore, factories and commercial establishments, like shopping malls, put up only as much rooftop solar capacity as would satisfy their demand, even if they have the space and wherewithal for more. As for individuals, rooftop solar has never been an attractive proposition even if they got the subsidy given by the Central and State governments. Recognising the need to bring discoms on board, the concept note aims to put them in the driver’s seat, by giving the discoms financial incentives for every MW of rooftop capacity created in their area of operation. However, to avail themselves of incentives, discoms should create the capacities through tariff-based competitive bidding. This, the Centre hopes, will egg the discoms on to creating an “enabling ecosystem for expeditious implementation” of rooftop projects.

There are many problems with this approach. First, the capacity-linked incentive reflects anachronistic thinking, which encourages disregard for quality. Second, the proposed scheme seeks to shift the game from captive players to energy companies (independent power producers, or IPPs). In a tariff-based competitive bidding scenario, individual and small producers will be at a disadvantage. Further, a competitive bidding process would culminate in a power purchase agreement and a PPA is not particularly appropriate for a sell-only-surplus situation. Another serious omission is the absence of any policy direction on ‘net metering’, which would allow owners of captive rooftop plants to sell surplus power to the grid. The Centre should bring in a generation-based incentive. Discoms could buy rooftop solar power at the weighted average cost of all the power they buy. The policy should also make way for standardisation and self-certification.

In fact, the fundamental premise on which the proposals are based, is flawed. At a time when rooftop solar power is on a par with or cheaper than grid power, there is no need to ask discoms to create an enabling ecosystem. In fact, the need is to get discoms out of the way, perhaps with financial incentives.

(All of the above articles have been taken straight from The Hindu. We owe it all to them. This is just an effort to consolidate opinions expressed in The Hindu in a subject-wise manner.)

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