New HAREDA Act:
State shall promote installation of small capacity roof top grid connected Solar Power Plants on the roofs of Industries, public and private Institutes, schools, colleges, commercial institutions/establishments, Charitable Trust Bhawans, Hospitals and residential buildings etc. for their captive use and for sale to power utilities. Apart from 30 % capital subsidy available to Solar Projects under MNRE schemes, the State DISCOMS shall procure the solar power generated at a fixed feed in tariff. During the tenure of this policy, State shall install aggregate 50 MW capacity of roof top grid connected Solar Power Plants.
The building owners shall also be encouraged to install the small capacity rooftop solar power plants (5KW to 100KW) at their own cost on net metering basis. The power generated shall be used by building owner as captive use and if any surplus power is generated than it shall purchased by DISCOMs of Haryana on the tariff fixed by HERC for roof top SPV power plants (the grid connectivity near the solar installation to be provided by DISCOMs subject to the condition that the individual building owner is the existing consumer of DISCOMs).The State Govt. shall provide financial assistance @ 40 % of the cost of system to the beneficiaries (including financial incentive being provided by Ministry of Renewable Energy, GOI under JNNSM i.e. if 30% financial assistance is provided by MNRE, than additional 10% shall be provide from green energy fund)
Haryana has very little by way of solar installations in a country where solar energy has become the main thrust of the national solar energy policy. Every state is competing with others to attract solar investments and increase the use of solar energy for electricity. The country which saw its solar demand plummet by almost 30% last year, is set to see a strong rebound this year. The highest ever solar installations in states such as Rajasthan and AP outdo each other by doing gigawatt deals. The central government has already sanctioned thousands of crores to promote giant solar parks, solar canals etc.
Now Haryana has joined the solar party, with the government starting to implement its solar policy which was notified in September 2014. The new order makes it mandatory for all buildings with size greater than 500 sq. yards to install solar panels. They would have to install a minimum of 1 kW or 5% of their power requirements whichever is higher. This would lead to a giant rush in small rooftop solar installations as every building has to complete this order by September 2015. Even assuming that there will be delay, I think this could easily lead to a sale of 50 MW of solar power systems in the small space.
This would not lead to a big increase in absolute installations but would help turbo charge the rooftop installation space, which has not seen much traction as most subsidies have been given to large ground mounted solar installations. The total rooftop market in the countrycumulatively has been just 125 MW. Haryana could become the pioneer in the small rooftop space with this initiative.