IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 78

difficult to acquire, and in states where there is an acute
shortage of non-agricultural land. The solar parks will be
developed in collaboration with the state governments
and their agencies. The choice of implementing agency
for developing and maintaining the park is left to the
state government.
Community development programs associated with
the solar parks have emerged as an important social
intervention to benefit the rural poor communities in the
vicinity of the projects. The programs typically include
vocational training for skilled employment, with targets
for female employment, energy-based livelihood activities
for poor households headed by women based on kitchen
gardening and traditional weaving, and improved employment and income earning opportunities for women
trained in non-traditional skills such as mobile phone
repairs and construction of smokeless cookstoves. Community infrastructure development has included small
scale infrastructure and supporting services to cover
basic community development needs, such as street
lighting, and the renovation of schools.

Rooftop Solar Schemes
It is proposed to make solar rooftop mandatory for properties with connected loads greater than 20 kW. There is
an estimated potential of 43 GW for grid-connected rooftop solar (RTS) schemes. RTS systems from 1-500 kilowatts-peak (kWp) can be set up on roofs under the MNRE
program. RTS do not require pooling of land or separate
transmission facilities, and have minimal technical losses, unlike ground-mounted solar projects. According to
MNRE assessments, the distribution companies also benefit in the following way:
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RTS projects enable them to meet their renewable
purchase obligations, which are targeted at 8% of
electricity consumption excluding consumption
already supplied by hydro.
Electricity from RTS systems will help them manage
daytime peak loads, which are projected to become
more widespread as India's economy grows.
Localized generation of power helps avoid the need
to buy costly power.
RTS systems help utilities address critical issues such
as high transmission and distribution losses.
Consumers can be active investors and participants
in the energy sector.

The installed capacity is growing at a rate of 75-100%
per year. The government has set a target of 40 GW of
capacity addition based on solar PV rooftop systems.
There is a lot of interest, especially from industries and
commercial consumers to set up RTS capacity, in view of
the favorable tariff conditions, i.e., the utility tariffs for

these categories of customers being high and the effective tariff from RTS being substantially lower.
The subsidy for RTS, was previously 30% to all states
and up to 70% to "special category states."3 According to
the latest notification of MNRE, dated March 2019, notifying Phase-II of the grid connected RTS Scheme, the subsidy from the Central Government for RTS has been
reduced. There is subsidy now available for only the next
4000 MW in the residential sector (up to 10 KW capacity)
and nothing for any other sector. However, there is now
an incentive to the State Distribution Utilities to accelerate setting up RTS capacity in their State, for the first
18 000 MW additional capacity, although the average per
kilowatt rate for subsidy for this is much less than for the
residential consumers. This is possibly in view of the sizable drop in cost of setting up RTS capacity. Besides the
Central Government incentive, the State Government is
also free to give its own incentives for setting up RTS
capacity within the State. Subsidies for domestic or residential RTS are provided in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. Kerala has undertaken an important
initiative to provide RTS systems for below poverty line
(BPL) households. The Central Government incentive is
only applicable for indigenously manufactured solar panels. The commercial and industrial sectors are made
eligible for accelerated depreciation, custom duty concession, excise duty exemption, and tax holidays.
Women are only an estimated 11% of employees in the
rooftop solar sector in India, which is significantly less
than the global average for the renewables sector of 32%.
However, it is higher than the percentage of women in
other energy sectors in India, such as coal, oil, and gas
companies, and electricity utilities. Women's participation
varies across the value chain of rooftop solar companies.
Highest is in the design and pre-construction phase and
corporate segments -which offer mostly office-based
positions - where women account for 18% and 34% of
the workforce, respectively. In the area of construction
and commissioning, women constitute 3%, and, in operations and maintenance, a mere 1%. Both areas involve
frequent site visits or onsite work. These low levels of
employment of women are caused by a number of factors
including lack of access to opportunities due to safety
and security concerns at project sites and misperceptions
of women's capabilities in some roles; insufficient human
resource policies beyond legally mandated requirements;
societal norms and practices at workplaces that fail to factor in the differentiated needs of women; and lack of consciousness among decision makers [12].
3

A "special category state" is designated as such based on the following criteria: hilly and difficult terrain, low population density or sizeable share of
tribal population, strategic location along borders with neighboring countries, economic and infrastructural backwardness, and non-viable nature of
state finances. They have the right to several benefits including preferential
treatment in the allocation of central government funds.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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MARCH 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

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