Solar Rooftop Systems:A Promising Option for Renewable Energy in India

The advantage of solar energy when compared to other renewable along with long-term reliability and almost immune to climate change has motivated countries around the world to frame pro-solar energy policies. However, consumers’ willingness and acceptance of solar rooftops in India is relatively low as compared to consumers in other countries. High initial investment and uncertainty of returns are significant barriers to installation of a solar rooftop. The paper presents, a cost-benefit analysis using break-even point, discounted payback period and internal-rate-of-return of the solar rooftop systems of varying capacities both with and without subsidies. The results show that there is a direct relationship between the size of the solar rooftop systems and individual financial return, which means that as the size of the solar systems increases from 1kW to 10kW the return on investment also increases gradually. The paper concludes that solar rooftop systems provide huge potential to tap the natural source of energy at lower cost as well as reducing emission intensity of growth, particularly for energy hungry countries like India in their pursuit to high growth trajectory.