The government’s renewed drive to promote solar energy in homes is set to take off by the end of this week with the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) finalising vendor lists for consumers.
A senior TEDA official said the vendor list for the solar rooftop capital incentive scheme would be uploaded on the website within three or four days. The scheme is part of the Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy, 2012 wherein a capital subsidy of Rs. 20,000 has been proposed to be given for 10,000 rooftop solar power plants on a first-cum-first serve basis.
This subsidy will be in addition to the 30 per cent subsidy given by the Union ministry of new and renewable energy.
The rooftop solar plant scheme can only be availed of by consumers installing the ‘on grid’ type that doesn’t have batteries and is directly fed into the grid. Over 250 domestic consumers who have installed solar plants have applied for this scheme, the official said.
The official said a total of 27 manufacturers have shown interest in the vendor empanelling procedure with the lowest bidder quoting Rs. 91,000 for the one kilo watt (KW) solar plant and the highest quotation at Rs. 2.12 lakh.
On the need for listing vendors on the TEDA website (www.teda.in), the official said: “In the absence of any standard price list, vendors could charge heftily. As the solar power market is growing fast, a price listing online will help prevent consumers from being overcharged.”
