‘100,000 houses installing solar systems a week under PM Surya Ghar’

UNion renewable vim secretarial assistant Santosh Kumar Sarangi on midweek said that around 100,000 households ar at present installing rooftop solar systems every week under the Centre’s flagship PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, with the government expressing confidence that its target of covering 10 million homes by March 2027 remains firmly on track.Latest data, till July 13 by the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) shows the scheme has so far benefitted 4.65 million households across the country. Gujarat leads the country with 1.06 million households covered, followed closely by Maharashtra (1.04 million) and Uttar Pradesh (676,000). The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, launched in February 2024, seeks to provide rooftop solar systems to 10 million residential households while reducing dependence on conventional power sources. Households installing systems larger than 3 kW receive a central subsidy of ₹78,000.“We are covering around one lakh (100,000) households every seven days now and we expect to cross 50 lakh (5 million) households next month. The target of covering one crore (10 million) households by March 2027 is very much on track,” Sarangi told HT. The increase in numbers is also down to an aggressive push in states, where initial numbers were low. “This includes states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where initially, numbers were low but have picked up pace now,” Sarangi said.Kerala (300,000), Rajasthan (267,000), Andhra Pradesh (227,000), Madhya Pradesh (154,000), Assam (153,000), Odisha (131,000) and Haryana (117,000) are among the other leading states. Among Union Territories, Delhi has recorded 14,736 household rooftop solar connections under the scheme so far.He further attributed the recent momentum partly to word-of-mouth publicity by beneficiaries and sustained awareness campaigns across print, television and FM radio, adding as renewables grow, it helps push towards India’s target of installing 500 GW of non-fossil fuel energy capacity by 2030. Sarangi said the government has already installed 288 GW of capacity so far.Experts said while the numbers are encouraging, the finer challenges, like making the subsidy process smoother, is also important. “The data speaks for itself. We are seeing consistent growth now and states where there is both central and state subsidy are doing well,” said Binit Das, programme manager for the renewable energy team at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). He said while space constraints remain an issue, particularly in urban spaces, other challenges include the financial process.“The Utility-Led Aggregation (ULA) model, which shifts rooftop solar from an individual and vendor-led transaction to a utility-aggregated one by the discom, is one of the key growth drivers of faster progress in states like Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Financing also remains inconsistent at the ground level. While collateral-free loans are available nationally under the scheme, awareness of the product varies widely from branch to branch, and banks handle subsidy adjustment against loans in different ways – some promptly recalculating the EMI once the subsidy is credited and others don’t, leaving borrowers confused about their actual repayment schedule,” Das said, adding after-sales can also be improved further.On July 6, clean energy also supplied exactly 50.02% of India’s total electricity demand of 221.5 GW during the daytime, a key milestone.Sarangi said as installed capacity grows, there comes a greater need for battery energy storage systems (BESS) and pumped storage projects.“Today we have around 6 GWh of BESS capacity, but projections indicate India will require nearly 236 GWh by 2030. Orders for over 200 GWh have already been placed and we expect substantial capacity addition over the next one to two years,” he added.The ministry is also testing agri-photovoltaics, under which elevated solar panels allow farming activities to continue underneath them. Around 40-45 pilot projects are underway across the country to identify suitable crops and farming practices, Sarangi said.