Rooftop solar vendors in Kovai want easy procedures to boost installations

Rooftop solar vendors on Tuesday sought simplified approval procedures, clarity on subsidy calculations and the introduction of virtual net metering at a meeting with Energy Resources and Law Minister C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar at the Government College of Technology in Coimbatore.
The Minister said only around 87,000 rooftop solar installations had been completed in Tamil Nadu until April, lower than other States. To encourage wider adoption, the State government had recently announced a combined subsidy of up to ₹1 lakh, including the Central government subsidy for residential rooftop solar systems of up to 3 kW. He said nearly 30,000 applications had been received under the scheme in the three weeks following its launch.
Among the issues raised by vendors was the continued insistence by local electricity board offices on physical copies of documents that applicants had already uploaded to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s portal.
They also called for automating the estimation sanction process, arguing that approvals based on a checklist of around seven criteria could be generated through the portal once the requirements were met.
Vendors suggested printing promotional messages about rooftop solar on electricity bills for an effective reach rather than relying mainly on mass advertising. Another proposal was to make rooftop solar installations of 2–3 kW mandatory at the building plan approval stage for houses seeking higher electricity loads.
The Minister said the government would consider the practical difficulties raised by vendors at the meeting and make further improvements to the implementation process.