FAQ's

In a solar rooftop system, the solar panels are installed in the roof of any residential, commercial, institutional and industrial buildings. This can be of two types:
(i) Solar Rooftop System with storage facility using battery, and
(ii) Grid Connected Solar Rooftop System.

A 1 kW rooftop system generally requires 100 square feet Approx. of flat, shadow-free area (preferably south-facing). Actual sizing, however, depends also on local factors of solar radiation and weather conditions and shape of the roof.

At less than र 6.5 per unit, solar electricity is much cheaper than total grid tariffs of around र 6.6 per unit (surcharges and taxes included). The grid tariffs are also increasing at 6-8% per year. At this rate, waiting for solar energy systems to get cheaper means losing substantial amount of your money.

With a host of available financing options (traditional purchase, Loans, Lease, etc), it depends entirely on you as to how much you want to pay. In any case, it will end up much cheaper than your current electricity solutions.

In grid connected rooftop or small SPV system, the DC power generated from SPV panel is converted to AC power using power conditioning unit and is fed to the grid either of 33 kV/11 kV three phase lines or of 440/220 Volt three/single phase line depending on the capacity of the system installed at institution/commercial establishment or residential complex and the regulatory framework specified for respective States.

In grid connected rooftop or small SPV system, the DC power generated from SPV panel is converted to AC power using power conditioning unit and is fed to the grid either of 33 kV/11 kV three phase lines or of 440/220 Volt three/single phase line depending on the capacity of the system installed at institution/commercial establishment or residential complex and the regulatory framework specified for respective States.

• Electricity generation at the consumption centre and hence Savings in transmission and distribution losses
• Low gestation time
• No requirement of additional land
• Improvement of tail-end grid voltages and reduction in system congestion with higher
• self-consumption of solar electricity
• Local employment generation

Solar panels and solar inverters are two most important and expensive components of your solar systems. While high quality solar panels last from 25-30 years.

Solar systems typically require very little maintenance. In highly dusty environments present in majority of India, regular cleaning of solar panels will ensure maximum production.

No. Though maintenance of solar systems is indeed negligible compared to any other energy generator, it doesn’t mean that these are maintenance-free. In fact, the lack of proper monitoring and maintenance is one of the key issues of their failure in delivering adequate results in many cases. Solar systems indeed require negligible maintenance compared to any of its counterparts, but lack of proper monitoring and maintenance can result in poor outputs out of your system, severely affecting your savings and ROIs.

Your solar power system can be detached from your current system and reinstalled on the new roof as and when required. In case you want to sell your property, you can either sell the solar PV system to the new buyer or get it detached and reinstalled on your new roof.

In the case of grid failure, On-grid solar system automatically shuts off. A working grid-connected solar system in such situation, can be lethally dangerous to the workers attempting to fix power outages. If you have a diesel generator as backup, the solar system can work in synchronization with it. Connecting your solar system to a battery backup is another alternative.

Rooftop solar power plants are a little more expensive than large-scale solar parks. Such large power plants are able to get components at lower prices due to the scale of their demands. And even in such conditions, quotes as low as ₹4 per unit generated are very rare and considered ambitious by the industry worldwide. The cost of small-scale rooftop solar power plants hovers around र 6 per unit.

The ambitious subsidy programs announced by the central and the state government, regularly fall short of expectations owing to non-efficient mechanism and shortage of available funds. Thankfully solar systems today are cheap enough, that it doesn’t have to depend on subsidies to make economic sense for you. .It is advised to the customers, especially those from industrial and commercial sectors, to not factor solar subsidies in their plant cost analyses.

Net metering is an agreement that allows the solar PV system owner to sell excess solar energy to the utility company or buy deficit energy from the utility company using a meter to track this energy exchange.

Following 2 cases take place in this scenario:
Case 1: If at any moment of time, if solar energy generation (kWh) is less than the load requirement at that time, the difference of energy is taken from the main grid and the meter runs forward, as usual. In this case, the system owner is charged for the units (kWh) consumed from the main grid. Eg. During early morning or during late evening/night.

Case 2: If at any moment of time, if solar energy generation (kWh) is more than the load requirement at that time, the excess solar energy is fed back to the main grid and the meter now runs backward. In this case, the system owner gets credit for the units (kWh) fed back to the main grid. Eg. During peak sunshine hours (afternoon).

We take 300 days to for the sake of calculation and expect average generation of 4 units per day by a system of 1KWp grid connected solar system.
Annual Generation = 4 units X 365 days = 1460 units/KWp. It depends on Orientation, Irradiance, Angle of Roof, Shadow if any.

Through a policy called “Net Metering” state utility buys the excess solar power from the rooftop solar system owners.

1.Maximum Solar capacity allowed per Roof: equal to Sanctioned load of the subscriber.

2. The Subscriber can opt for either Gross or net metering at the time of signing of Power Purchase Agreement with BESCOM.

3. In gross metering, the net energy exported will be purchased by BESCOM at the following rates:

4. In case of net metering, net of consumption and export will be either billed to customer (if consumption is more than export) or BESCOM will pay if exports are more than consumption.