Solar Rooftop Installation

QUARTERLY UTILITY SCALE SOLAR INSTALLATIONS IN INDIA 2017-2021

in MWs

Source: MNRE, CEA EQ iSearch

SOLAR ROOFTOP INSTALLATION

Rooftop installations increased slightly in Q1 2021 reaching 934 MW. In CY 2020 rooftop installations totaled 1,172 MW a strong 20 percent year-over-year growth. The growth was primarily led by commercial and industrial installations followed by government and residential segments. Even though the year-over-year growth rate is impressive, rooftop installations starts from a lower base and moves with higher growth from 2017, and in the coming year the installations in rooftop segments will touch with the yearly installation of utility-scale as the potential for rooftop solar is abundance especially in the residential segment. Cumulative rooftop solar installations have reached 4,440 MW and still make up just 11 percent of the total solar installations in the country. After a significant increase of over 220 percent quarter-overquarter growth from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021, installation growth remained almost flat for the rest of the year due to second wave of Covid. We expect rooftop installations will grow exponentially in 2021 as the demand in commercial and industrial are increasing every year. Following the safeguard duty going to end in July 2021, we expect rooftop installations to grow as rooftop developers are waiting for the duty to get over so that they can procure the panels and go for their installations. Even uncertainty over policy is giving hard time for the installers to sign a new contract, also consumers are not showing that many interests due to policy uncertainty such as ALMM, BCD, Safeguard duty extension, also net-metering policy. In Q1 2021, the installation under the rooftop segment was an all-time high, as the projects which were not able to get commissioned at the end of 2020 end were get executed in the first quarter of 2021.