Energetica India Magazine December 2020

SOLAR POWER Net-metering: The Oxygen for Roof-top Solar It is becoming increasingly clear that DISCOMS are not comfortable with net-metering and have been lobbying ERC’s to act against net-metering. Hence, it is important to understand a few of the challenges faced within the ecosystem and viable solutions for the same. 46 energetica INDIA- December_2020 Solar has been one of India’s sunshine sectors as it has contributed to boosting the Indian economy significantly over the last decade. The financial benefits consumers receive from Solar are ex - tensive. The Central Government has supported the renewable sector over the last decade as it aimed to curb carbon emissions and fulfil its promises made at the Paris Summit. However, as India gets closer to hitting its solar capacity targets, there is an inclination from the govern - ment to reduce incentives that are cru - cial to building new capacities. Net-metering is an important policy tool which is critical for the survival and growth of the roof-top solar segment. Net-metering offers a prosumer the op- tion to export surplus power generation from a roof-top installation to be banked with the DISCOM. These banked units can be adjusted to the import of units by the consumers. In effect, the policy allows us to treat the grid as a virtual battery storage mechanism. This is ex - tremely important for both the residential and C&I segment. Solar plants work 365 days with a bell curve shaped genera - tion pattern. This entails that peak gen- eration from Solar happens between 10AM – 2PM. However, the consump - tion of residences and factories is not the same. Residential power consump- tion rises in the evening and drops off at night. Day-time consumption is minimal. In industries, 1-2PM is lunch time, which results in a drop in electricity consump- tion. Moreover, considering a weekly-off and statutory holidays, the number of off- days in year comes to 70 days (about 2 and a half months). Without a net-me - tering option, power generation from the roof-top solar system must either be cur- tailed or stored in expensive batteries. Both are economically unattractive and drive away most of the interested con - sumers looking at solar. Moreover, oper - ating a plant under captive consumption with zero export requires technical com - petence at the consumer and installer end. It requires carefully done load esti - mation studies and designing solar sys- tem sizes to ensure minimal wastage of units generated. This results in reduced installation sizes. Many states in India are removing their net-metering policies or impos- ing charges or additional restrictions on them. Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh are some of the states that removed their net-metering policies over the past cou - ple of years. Ever since, there has been a substantial drop in new installations. In Maharashtra, there was an announce - ment to remove net-metering which was met with extreme resistance from install - ers and consumers. Since then, Maha - rashtra has allowed for net-metering up to 2000MW in the states but has im - posed grid support charges to be levied once the target is achieved. Moreover, the draft electricity consumer rights of 2020 propose that consumers can avail Net-metering for loads up to 5KW. For loads above 5 KW, can opt for gross-me - tering. It is becoming increasingly clear that DISCOMS are not comfortable with net-metering and have been lobby - ing ERC’s to act against net-metering. Hence, it is important to understand a few of the challenges faced within the ecosystem and viable solutions for the same. • Challenges & Solutions 1. DISCOMs — Reluctance to pro- mote Solar : The DISCOMS have been increasingly unsupportive and unwel - coming of roof-top Solar projects for self-consumption. They view roof-top solar as a viable threat to the monopoly they hold in the market. Roof-top solar re- duces the billing generated by high-pay- ing consumers to the DISCOM’s, hence they do not wish to lose out on these consumers. The consumer should have the right to Animesh A Damani Managing Partner, Artha Energy Resources