To Boost Efficiency, India Launches Star Ratings Of Solar Panels

To Boost Efficiency, India Launches Star Ratings Of Solar Panels

Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh today launched a star rating programme for solar panels. The minister said the ratings would be voluntary for the module makers for the first year. However, this will be made mandatory in the next few years after scrutiny of the ministry.

“We want to empower the consumers who want solar modules installed on their rooftops. They should know about the efficiency levels of the solar panels. So, we are launching the star ratings for the solar modules. We urge the module makers to comply with this in the next one year. We will review it after one year. If we do not see much compliance, we will make it mandatory,” Singh said in a media conference today.

The minister added that the standards have not been kept aggressive at the moment. However, the standards are set to be revised soon by introducing more efficient solar modules. Singh said that the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has kept a 5-star Rating for those solar modules which has more than 22 percent efficiency.

“We are now pushing the rooftop solar installations in the country. The common solar consumers in India now usually do not know which modules are better and more efficient and how much solar power they can generate. They are at the mercy of the installers. Consumers thus lack the ways to know the details of the efficiency and power generation potential of their solar power. Thus, a star rating for solar panels was needed to empower the consumers,” Singh added.

Officials from the BEE, Ministry of Power and MNRE claimed that the solar panel rating development was a painstaking and arduous work that took months to develop the modalities. They, however, said that with the star rating system, the module manufacturers would display the efficiency levels of their modules on their modules, the power generation capacity of their modules and other details to make the whole system transparent. They also claimed that this was one of the rare exercises undertaken by any country, and with the system’s launch, India became a leader in this sector.