Bihar Proposes To Reduce Timelines For Rooftop Solar Installations

Bihar Proposes To Reduce Timelines For Rooftop Solar Installations

The Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) has now come up with its latest draft regulation to pave the way for reduced timelines for rooftop solar projects. This comes after the Union government is pushing residential rooftop projects with increased subsidies and ambitious targets.

The state commission has issued the draft paper and asked the stakeholders to comment on the issue before June 25. The proposed document sought to amend Bihar  Electricity  Regulatory  Commission  had  notified BERC  (Rooftop  Solar  Grid  Interactive  systems  Based  on  Net  and  Gross Metering) Regulations 2018. The new regulation has been named as Draft BERC (Rooftop Solar Grid Interactive Systems Based on Net and Gross Metering) (First Amendment) Regulation, 2024.

The new draft paper of the BERC mandates the discoms to reduce the timeline for the Technical Feasibility Report (TFR) to 15 days. It also said that if the discoms do not submit the TFR within 15 days, the project would be considered to be feasible. It also asked the discoms to prepare their guidelines and procedures on net or gross metering within three months after the publication of the rules.

It also said that for project which have capacities below 10 Kw would not need TFR. “…Applications for roof top solar photo voltaic systems upto 10 kW capacity, complete in all respects shall be deemed to have been accepted without requiring technical feasibility study and any commensurate enhancement of the sanctioned load of the consumer, as may be required, shall be carried out by the distribution licensee,” the draft BERC rules said. 

It is noteworthy to mention that the growth of rooftop solar had been laggard in Bihar. The latest data from MNRE said that Bihar has a total rooftop solar capacity of only 71. 89 MW. This is contrast to many other states which have rooftop solar capacities in GW scale. For example has a rooftop solar capacity of 3506 MW while Maharashtra has a capacity of 2071 MW.