Finally Delhi has had enough of the crippling power crisis as DERC permits metering of renewable energy 

devkduttaIt’s great to see the solar energy industry slowly but gradually getting the space to manoeuvre in India. However, the present subsidy of 30% across the board for any and every type of solar installation isn’t quite enough to balance the high cost of procuring the equipment which discourages the vast majority of people from investing in this perennial source of power. The recent decision of the DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission), the watchdog body of Delhi’s power sector, to allow metering of renewable energy was a milestone that literally opened the floodgates of opportunities in this sector to flow into the national capital.

This doesn’t mean you’re going to see an overnight transformation in the power supply situation in Delhi. Right now it’s just a positive policy decision by the power regulator of the national capital to allow residents to install renewable power generating equipment in their premises and leverage that against their power bills. This includes all forms of renewable energy like wind, gas, hydro and solar among others although Delhi can only harness solar power for now. Solar power alone has tremendous potential in sun-rich Delhi. Even if we are able to harness just half the potential solar power availability here, the savings in our power usage expenses will be substantial.

Residents of the city, who install solar power generating equipment in their premises, now have the option to sell power to the grid and earn energy credits that are redeemable through adjustment to the power bills. Given the life span of around 25 years for an average domestic solar power generating system, the ROI (Return on Investment) will be many times over in the long run. In any case, integration of renewable energy into the power infrastructure of the nation was never an ‘if’; it was always a case of ‘when’ it will gain momentum. Now that the national capital Delhi, with its 15 million inhabitants, has broken the shackles to allow solar energy to be harnessed and leveraged by residents, what remains to be seen is how fast the city takes to it.

Talking about the potential of solar power in Delhi alone, here is an interesting case study. The newly constructed MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forests) head quarters building in the Jor Bagh area of New Delhi is reportedly India’s first ‘net zero’ conventional energy consumption multi-storied building. It has been specially designed for solar power generation as the roof surface of the building has been expanded from 2000 square meters to 6000 square meters to accommodate the maximum number of solar PV panels. As a result, the building now produces over 1 MW of power which is considerably more than what it requires.

The DERC’s decision to regulate solar power generation and distribution will allow the MoEF building to sell the surplus power it generates and earn energy credits. It can redeem the credits against its use of grid power when it won’t generate solar power due to weather conditions or other reasons. A casual sum-up of this one case shows us the potential of solar power. If a hundred such buildings with a similar average of one megawatt of power were to come up in the next couple of years, it will free up 100 MW of power from the grid with an estimated quarter of that power being added back to the grid to bolster its capacity. This is just a ball park assessment of what we all know to be a resource of enormous potential.

How fast and effectively renewable energy develops to even a quarter of its potential over the next few years in India will depend on the support provided by the government. The new prime minister hails from a state where he was instrumental in ensuring power supply to the entire population through optimum utilization of available resources. Solar power formed a critical part of the resource base that Gujarat used, to provide electricity to a huge segment of its rural population. It is expected that the new government would like to replicate this success nationally.

(Dev K Dutta has been following developments in the renewable energy sector as a freelance journalist since the year 2000. He has always held that this is one of the next big sectors that will drive the growing Indian economy in the near future. He likes to share and receive views and opinion on this vital sector. )
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