Solar Pv Rooftop Program Progress in India: Achievements, Challenges and Way Forward

With 300 days of sunshine throughout the year, India is naturally blessed with solar energy. Realizing this potential, the GOI launched National Solar Mission in 2010 and committed to 100GW of solar power targets by the end of 2030. While utility-scale got a major push during the initial years of the National Mission, the Government of India launched Rooftop Solar Program in 2015 to accelerate the adoption of rooftop technology across various sectors country-wide and achieve a target of 40GW of rooftop solar by the end of 2022.Different states also took initiatives through policies to promote the program.Despite initiatives, the program faced challenges at the national and state level, which were technical, financial,and political in nature.Some of these include access to finance, program awareness, and inconsistent policies.Uncontrollable events like COVID-19 significantly impacted further growth and created a significant gap in actual targets vs. achieved numbers of rooftop solar adoptions across the country. Despite the challenges, some states introduced state-level initiatives that helped pace rooftop PV adoption.This paper attempts to identify and analyze these challenges through policy examination and understanding of these initiatives. The paper also suggests ways to further accelerate the adoption in a more uniform manner across the country.