This is a two part article. Part 1 deals with an overview of residential rooftop solar installation (January 2025) across the country, and Part 2 will analyse the uptake of rooftop solars.
I. Introduction
India has significant Solar Energy Potential (SEP) with about 5000 trillion units per year energy incident over India’s land area. The average solar incidence in India is 4 to 7 kWh per sq.m per day with approximately 300 to 330 sunshine days per year. The SEP varies across various regions in the country. For example, in the northern regions, SEP is 336.3 GW, in the western regions it is 180.9 GW, 107.3 in the southern region, 66.4 GW in the eastern region and 57.4 GW in the northeastern region.
In recent times, with the demand for clean energy increasing, the awareness that solar energy from rooftops is a plausible way to achieve our green energy targets, is increasing. Rooftop Solar (RTS) Photovoltaic systems produce electricity by utilizing heat energy emitted by the sun during the sunshine hours. RTS installations not only provide electricity for households but also contribute to reducing carbon footprints, reducing climate change impact, and enhancing energy independence. RTS involves the process of converting solar heat into electricity using solar cells connected in series and parallel combinations. RTS can provide electricity for self consumption, with the excess fed to the grid.
As on 31.01.2025, 16 GW capacity of RTS were installed in the country. This article discusses the growth trend of RTS in India, the capacity of installed RTS across various regions in the country and challenges in RTS uptake by residential consumers.
II. Region-Wise RTS Installed Capacity
It is inferred that out of the total installation capacity (16.3 GW) of RTS in the country, as of January 2025, 59% (9587 MW) is installed in western regions, 21% (3403 MW) installed in southern regions, 14% (2308 MW) installed in northern regions, 4% (607 MW) installed in central regions, 2% (327 MW) in eastern regions and 0.005% (80 MW) in northeastern regions of the country. RTS installations are fairly higher in western, southern and northern regions of the country compared to central, and northeastern regions. These variations are in step with the region’s SEP. The other factor for slow paced RTS installations in northeastern regions could also be land availability, as most of the areas are hilly landscapes, reserved for forests and farming.
Image 1: RTS installations region wise in India | Data: MNRE
III. State wise RTS Installed capacity
(i) Northern Region
The northern region of the country comprises the states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Himachal pradesh. The total installed capacity of RTS in these regions was 2.31 GW as of January, 2025. The individual northern states RTS installed capacity are depicted in image 2. Among the RTS installed capacity in northern region states, Haryana had 35% (804.5 MW), Punjab had 19% (440 MW), Uttar Pradesh had 14% (319.3 MW), Delhi had 13% (294.6 MW), Uttarakhand had 12% (273.7 MW), Chandigarh had 5% (107.4 MW), Jammu Kashmir had 2% (42.2 MW) and Himachal Pradesh had the lowest installation capacity of 24.6 MW. (1% of the total installed capacity in the northern region). .
Image 2. Rooftop solar installations in northern states of India |Data: MNRE
(ii) Southern Region
The southern region of the country comprises the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala. The total installed capacity of RTS in the southern regions was 3.40 GW as of January, 2025. Among the RTS installed capacity in southern region states, Kerala had 29% (1003.6 MW), Tamilnadu had 26% (899.8 MW), Karnataka had 20% (683.6 MW), Telangana had 14% (472.9 MW), Andhra Pradesh had 9% (290.8 MW) and Puducherry had the lowest installation capacity of .52.6 MW (2%).
Image 3. Rooftop solar installations in southern states of India |Data: MNRE
(iii) Eastern Region
The overall uptake of RTS installations in the eastern states, namely West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar, is less compared to other regions in the country. The total RTS installed capacity in eastern states was only 327.17 MW. As depicted in image 4, Bihar had 30% (99.7 MW), Jharkhand had 28% (93.04 MW), Odisha had 21% (67.3 MW) and West Bengal had 21% (67.13 MW) installations respectively.
Image 4. Rooftop solar installations in eastern states of India | Data: MNRE
(iv) Western Region
India’s western regions had the highest RTS installed capacity of 9.58 GW in the country. In specific, out of the total installation in these regions Gujarat had 52% (4984.2 MW), Maharashtra had 32% (3034.3 MW), Rajasthan had 15% (1483.1 MW) and Goa had 1% (50.9 MW) and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu had just 0.35% (34 MW) of installations of RTS as of January, 2025.
Image 5. Rooftop solar installations in western states of India | Image: CAG |Data: MNRE
(v) Northeastern Region
The northeastern region had the lowest RTS installation in the country with 80.32 MW. Among the northeastern states Assam had 66% (53.4 MW) of the total installed RTS capacity of 80 MW. The remaining northeastern states such as Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur had only a meager amount of installations as depicted in image 6.
Image 6. Rooftop solar installations in northeast states of India | Data: MNRE
(vi) Central Region
The total installed RTS solar capacity in the central region was 607 MW. As depicted in image 7, out of total capacity in this region, 82% (499 MW) is installed in Madhya Pradesh and 18% (107 MW) of the capacity installed is in Chattisgarh.
Image 7. Rooftop solar installations in central states of India | Image: CAG |Data: MNRE
V. Conclusion
This article summarizes RTS installations under the PM Surya Ghar Scheme across the country, based on Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) data. (The PM Surya Ghar scheme enables households to generate their own electricity with subsidized solar photovoltaic system installation). According to the data, the total RTS installed capacity in the country by January 2025 reached 16 GW. The western region recorded the highest RTS installations, amounting to 9553 MW, while the northeastern region had the lowest, with only 80 MW. Additionally, the southern region achieved RTS installations of 3351 MW, the northern region installed 1862 MW, the central region recorded 607 MW, the Union Territories reached 538 MW, and the eastern region installed 327 MW. Part 2 of the article will analyze possible reasons that explain these trends.
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