Tamil Nadu has been ranked tenth in the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index (SARAL), below other key States.
Karnataka has been given the first rank in the index, followed by Telangana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
SARAL has been designed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in association with Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and Ernst & Young (EY). According to MNRE, this index encourages each State to assess the initiatives taken so far, and what it can do to improve its solar rooftop ecosystem.
The index captures five key aspects — robustness of policy framework, implementation environment, investment climate, consumer experience and business ecosystem. Tamil Nadu was given a overall score of 50.9, with a grade of A+.
Karnataka had an overall score of 78.8, followed by Telangana with 72.2, Gujarat at 67.9 and Andhra Pradesh at 66.1. They were all given the grade A++.
The State scored poorly in terms of robustness of policy framework and effectiveness of policy work/implementation, which pushed down its overall score. It was given a score of 40.97 in terms of robustness of policy framework, 46.82 in terms of effectiveness of implementation, 65.98 in terms of investment climate, 51.72 for consumer experience and 53.43 for business ecosystem. Leader Karnataka had a score of 99.54 and 76.77 in terms of these two metrics.
Tamil Nadu aims to have an installed solar capacity of 9000 MW by 2023, with 40% coming from rooftop solar systems. “The State needs to support HT Industrial and Commercial consumers through favourable stable policies and easy implementation procedures to become more attractive on the index,” Manu Karan, vice-president, Business Development, at solar energy company CleanMax Solar said.
When contacted, a senior official said the Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2019 will help improve the State’s ranking in the coming year.
“We also need to convince the regulator to determine a more attractive feed-in tariff for rooftop solar,” he added.
Published - September 06, 2019 12:42 am IST
