PM Surya Ghar: Modi Announces Details For Rooftop Solar Scheme

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today revealed details of the proposed residential rooftop solar scheme in India. This comes after Modi on January 22 announced a new scheme of extending rooftop solar to one crore households. On the other hand, Union Finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman in her interim budget had said that the new scheme would pave the way for 300 units of free electricity for rooftop solar prosumers.

Modi in his series of statements, published on social media X today named the scheme–PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. He also said that the scheme would require an investment of around Rs 75,000 crore for the government.  This is mostly the subsidies involved, capped at a maximum of Rs 78,000 per household. “In order to further sustainable development and people’s wellbeing, we are launching the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. This project, with an investment of over Rs. 75,000 crores, aims to light up 1 crore households by providing up to 300 units of free electricity every month,” Modi said.

He also added that from substantive subsidies, which will be given directly to people’s bank accounts, to heavily concessional bank loans, the Central Government will ensure that there is no cost burden on the people. All stakeholders will be integrated into a National Online Portal which will further convenience, he said. 

Although the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had issued its National Rooftop Solar Portal in 2022 to provide a single platform for residential rooftop solar vendors to claim subsidies and choose the vendors of their choice, PM Modi announced a new portal, PMsuryaghar.in  to streamline rooftop solar applications. Akin to the pre-existing National Rooftop Solar panel, the new portal also has similar facilities like a subsidy calculator, a list of financiers and a list of vendors. 

The PM Surya Ghar Scheme meanwhile also talked about the revised increased subsidies for rooftop solar projects. As per the details from the portal, consumers installing rooftop solar upto 2 KW will be eligible for subsidies upto Rs 30,000 per Kw. On the other hand, for additional capacity upto 3 Kw, the consumers will get subsidies at Rs 18,000/Kw. The portal has also given an estimated required of solar rooftop capacities based on the average monthly consumption.  

PM Modi also said, “In order to popularise this scheme at the grassroots, Urban Local Bodies and Panchayats shall be incentivized to promote rooftop solar systems in their jurisdictions. At the same time, the scheme will lead to more income, lesser power bills and employment generation for people.”

Rooftop solar reform spree

The announcement of PM Modi came after a series of developments from MNRE and other agencies aimed at boosting the growth of rooftop solar in the country which currently lagged behind its older targets due to several reasons. In January this year, MNRE increased the subsidies by 23% for residential rooftop solar connections. It also simplified the norms for Technical Feasibility Reports. It was followed by similar actions by other states and regulators too.

Delhi Chief Minister in January this year announced additional state subsidies for rooftop solar, free electricity for rooftop solar consumers in addition to generation-based incentives. On the other hand, the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC) increased the net metering for rooftop solar connections to upto 1 MW. In Chandigarh, the local government announced free rooftop solar connections under RESCO model. Jaipur’s local discom JVVNL also committed to reducing the time for net-metering procedures to 18 days.