Decarbonisation efforts have taken centre stage in India since our Hon’ble Prime Minister announced India’s Net Zero goals by 2070. India’s leadership of the International Solar Alliance has also brought considerable focus on solar energy. All this has resulted in a significant addition of Renewable Energy (RE) capacity in India in the last few years. Despite being behind in capacity addition compared to the publicly stated numbers, adding 65 GW in the last 7 years is no mean feat. However, as far as solar energy is concerned, the majority of the capacity addition has been in the utility-scale segment – large plants that supply green energy directly to the grid.
In June, the Ministry of Power (MoP), Government of India (Gol) notified the Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy. Through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2022. Let me begin by stating an oft- overlooked fact – Commercial and Industrial (C&I) customers consume close to 50% of the power produced in India, thereby being the single largest segment.
