Roof top solar plant in villages of India

In India these roof top / off grid systems are messed up completely....No sustain ability... Villagers have stopped paying as the Gynesh Pandey's (Husk Power) business model of two bulbs or three bulb connection which works out to be rs.40/kwh to rs.60/kwh(!!) was understood by villagers and no force can be used as it happened in Bihar (micro finance people used to extort high interest, now, Government rules have been strict against such extortion) so, villagers are drawing power, not paying or at times asking the adventurous Entrepreneur to take away the equipment etc..

The RESCOS have taken Accelerated Depreciation by supplying to few offices (private PPA), but, unsustainable pricing or business model. So, in INDIA, only Tax AVOIDANCE policies will not find any kind of sustainability, like what happened in WIND energy.... many companies, never bothered to know where were their wind machines, but, were only interested in adjusting the books for Accelerated Depreciation...

Only Govt is losing the subsidy and TAX COLLECTION FROM CORPORATE COMPANIES in the form of Accelerated Depreciation (which otherwise must have been paid by these renewable energy developers) and many of these plants will be shut down due to fooling villagers / residential roof system owners etc.. Hence a revisit to roof top PV or off grid system policy is very necessary....

In Gujarat, it could be much worse. The system of paying rs.3/kwh for roof top owner as rent/1000sft for 25 years and Azure Power (or a Contractor to whom Energy Generation contract is awarded) gets rs.6/kwh, thus, a rs.9/kwh, which Torrent is buying and in turn load to Government / Common man of Gujarat !?

The ignorant residence owner does / may not know that he can't sell his house / property without Azure power's (or a Contractor to whom Energy Generation contract is awarded) consent due to long term lease agreement !?

So, a classic business model of exploiting the people very openly with Government support!!, but, no corrective action!?... nevertheless, this has to be corrected in due course to reduce the cost of buying...

Residential roof top projects are very expensive as of now and should stop and INDIA needs low cost solutions...

The MNRE Ministry has sanctioned 15780 off-grid solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plants of total capacity of 13.25 MWp to be installed on individual houses in the country during 2012-13.

Ministry of New & Renewable Energy is providing a subsidy of 30% of the project cost limited to Rs. 72 per Wp for installation of standalone power plants having module capacity upto 1 kWp on the roof tops of individual houses in the country including rural areas.

Rs. 7.2 Crore x 13.3 = Rs. 95.4 Crore subsidy. How MNRE is going to ensure that these projects are running or defunct (many of them are already defunct as expressed in many Seminars) and what is the use of wasting public money in the form of Capital Subsidy?? Is there any sanctity or responsibility?? Why drain public money, if the intended purpose is not met….The CAPEX per MW = 7.2/0.3 = Rs. 24 Crore/MW (i.e Rs. 240/wp??!!), whereas Ground Mounted system costs you around Rs. 8 to 10 Crore/MW during this period. What a wrong business eco system?? Pay double to for nothing and then waste the Subsidy ?? Is this the way INDIA should promote Roof top system?? Are we Engineers and Good administrators with good business sense?? Is this the right time to spend on Roof top? Is this the way the policies are driven?? With Accelerated Depreciation, we made few companies to avoid the genuine tax collections, which is a further drain to our INDIAN economy. People talk too many irrational things without holistic approach. these kinds of projects or policies are highly unsustainable and we should stop for a while and implement with a transparent and meaningful business case which shall be understood by everyone to promote small entrepreneurs with the access to low cost funds.