Rs. 11, 814 crores for Phase-II of Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Program implementation

To achieve a cumulative capacity of 40,000 MW from Rooftop Solar projects by 2022, the Phase-II of Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Program has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs led by Honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. Rs. 11, 814 crores total central financial support would be provided for the implementation of this program.

Based on the restructuring of the Central Finance Assistance for residential sector, for Rooftop Solar (RTS) systems with up to 3 kW capacity 40% CFA and for RTS systems having more than 3kW capacity and up to 10 kW capacity 20% CFA would be made available.

20% CFA would be the limit for the RTS plants supplying power to common facilities of Residential Welfare associations/Group Housing societies where the limit for eligibility for CFA is10 kW per house and maximum total capacity of up to 500 kWp including the RTS put in the individual houses of the Group Housing societies/Residential Welfare associations.

Under residential category, CFA will be provided on basis of lower of the benchmark cost or tender cost, for 4000 MW capacity while for other categories like institutional, social, commercial, educational, industrial, government, etc this Central financial support is not applicable.

Under this program which aims to increase the DISCOMs involvement, DISCOMs  would get performance based incentives depending on the RTS capacity achieved every financial year (between 1^st April and 31^st March), over and above the base capacity achieved at the end of previous year. Following is the incentive details for the DISCOMs:

S.No.	Parameter	Incentive
1	For installed capacity achieved upto 10% over and above of installed base capacity* within a financial year.	No incentive
2	For installed capacity achieved above 10% and up to 15% over and above of installed based capacity* within a financial year	5% of the applicable cost** for capacity achieved above 10% of the installed base capacity
3	For installed capacity achieved beyond 15% over and above of installed based capacity* within one financial year.	5% of the applicable cost** for capacity achieved above 10% and up to 15% of the installed base capacity PLUS 10% of the applicable cost**  for capacity achieved beyond 15% of the installed base capacity.

*Installed base capacity refers to the collective RTS capacity including Residential, government, institutional, PSU, Private, Industrial etc., installed within the DISCOMs jurisdiction at preceding financial year end.

**Applicable cost refers to the lower of the applicable benchmark cost of MNRE for State or Union Territory for RTS capacity of more than 10 kW and up to 100 kW or the lowest of the costs found in the tenders of the States or Union Territory in that year.

DISCOMs and their local offices which would be the nodal points for this program implementation would have to incur additional costs in terms of more man-power, infrastructure development, capacity building etc for implementing the program. To enable them to make an enabling ecosystem which would expedite the RTS program implementation in their area as well as to compensate them for the additional expenditure, performance linked incentives have been approved for the DISCOMs. Only those DISCOMs adding up 18000 MW initial capacity would be eligible for the incentives under this scheme.

This program is expected to provide tremendous savings in CO2 emissions and provide substantial environmental impact. Taking 1.5 million units per MW as the average energy generation, by 2022, addition of 38 GW solar rooftop plant under this program is expected to reduce 45.6 tons of CO2 emissions yearly.

Additionally this program besides increasing self-employment is also expected to generate around 9.39 lakhs job year employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled workers for adding 38 GW solar rooftop plants under this scheme by 2022.