Gujarat Solar Rooftop Policy : Key Points

There is good news for residents in Gujarat, atleast the ones who are looking to install solar power plants, for homes. Very recently, Gujarat announced its renewable energy friendly budget for the financial year 2019-20. It is clear that the state administration is bullish on renewable energy and
is looking to harness the solar potential of the state.

 

The Finance Minister of Gujarat has presented the budget earmarking about 1000 Cr of subsidy for rooftop solar for Gujarat citizens. Already close to 50,000 residents have availed of this subsidy in earlier times. It is expected that the scheme may be availed of by 3-4 times that number in the coming year.

The slab for subsidy is provided below :

1-3KW : 40 % subsidy ( signalling the intent to subsidize small solar, as it is also more expensive to install for smaller plants for 1 KW solar system for rooftop)

4-10 KW shall be provided subsidy of 20%

To read more about the budget speech, a separate link is also being provided here

Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL), will be the nodal agency to manage the state subsidy roll out. You can also read more about other state nodal agencies for different states in India in our blog below

Where to go for state subsidies ?

Other interesting facts on solar deployment in Gujarat are as follows :

 

• Installed capacity of solar and wind combined has already reached 6200 MW and 2500 MW respectively.
• New capacities of 2250 MW is in the works as bidding process is already completed.
• For the next 10 years, the plan aims at producing 30000 MW of renewable energy in the state, part of which will be exported to other states as well.

What is interesting to note the progressive policy being adopted in Gujarat, which aims at deploying small scale solar, to provide extra stability to the grid ( as compared to large utility scale solar plants) and helps improve supply voltage at tail ends of the grid as well.

The budget also aims at promoting small scale solar for entrepreneurs and talks about small-scale solar power projects (500kW to 4 MW) on private land. GUVNL will purchase the solar electricity generated at feed in tariff. A target has been set to achieve approximately 2000 MW solar energy through this scheme.

Gujarat seems to be moving quickly in the area of RE and remains one of the favorite destinations for capital deployment in RE.