India has played an active role when it comes to deployment of renewable energy sources. It has played a leading role in forming the International Solar Alliance (ISA)with the prime objective to focus on utilization of solar energy. Additionally, India itself has set an ambitious target of 100 GW from solar power by 2022 which is divided into 60 GW of utility scale plants and 40 GW of rooftop scale plants. While the uptake of utility scale solar power plants has increased, the solar rooftop market whose installed capacity stands at mere 1,396 MW at the end of March 2017 is yet to see the light of the day.
There has been significant number of study which gives out the rooftop potential for the country/state/city. The data from such studies show that the potential of rooftop is huge. The study carried out by Greenpeace and Bridge to India for the city of Delhi(Figure 1) estimates that the city's total potential is 2.5 GW. Another study carried out by IIT Bombay and Bridge to India for the city of Mumbai (Figure 2) (only Greater Mumbai) estimates that the city's total potential is 1.7 GW. It is hence clear that the metro cities (and the entire country) have huge potential for solar rooftop power plants.