Boosting solar home system

Rooftop Solar Home System (SHS) was once thought to be an answer to the acute power shortage in the country as the traditional fossil-fuel-fired power plants were unable to meet the rising demand for electricity in the country. Moreover, it is a source of clean and renewable energy (RE) and hence considered appropriate for a tropical country with abundant sunshine all the year round. Against this background, the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA), a government agency under the power ministry tasked with increasing RE production, saw the installation of around 6.0 million SHSs across the country in the last two decades. But now sources in the government-run Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) that finances renewable infrastructure projects, is reported to have said that only around 4.5 million of those SHSs are now functional, which is nearly 75 per cent of the total. Evidently, the rest SHSs are not working. This is indeed disappointing given that the government in its recent policy shift as well as in its Renewably Energy Policy 2008 is committed to increasing production of RE in the country.

So, one wonders why at a time when the country is again in the throes of acute power crisis due to fossil fuel shortage, such a large number of the SHSs should sit idle? Reports further have it that the users of these solar home units, mostly rooftop ones, are facing problems including disconnected solar panels and damaged photovoltaic cells having to do with normal wear and tear or environmental pollution such as dust in the air and so on. The problem persists, since neither the users of the SHSs have the knowhow to repair the RE devices on their own, nor are any technicians from the IDCOL-partner companies that installed those solar power devices are available or easy to come by. This is both unfortunate and intriguing. Because, providing after-sales service that includes maintenances is a primary responsibility of the companies that supplied those SHSs to the households in question. It is also in their business interest to provide the service whether free or in exchange for a fee. Strangely, this is not happening.

In this context, experts on energy finance are of the view that the companies supplying and installing the SHSs might have lost their incentives following the government's massive expansion of grid network to ensure 100 per cent power access across the nation by 2022. However, the ongoing forex crunch (of US dollar, to be specific) forcing the government to cut back on fossil fuel import has a spanner in the works. The power authorities have again been resorting to the old practice of load-shedding to make do with the sharply reduced power supply through the grid network.

But when grid power was abundant, the users of the SHSs were also found lacking in their interest to have their RE devices duly serviced. Their apathy lay in the fact that in many cases their choice of installing rooftop SHSs was made half-heartedly, just to meet the official requirement.

Now that things are back to square one, a rethink on the part of both the users of and the companies dealing in the SHSs has become urgent. In this context, the government should reinvigorate its policies including the one spelt out in its 8th Five-year plan to meet 20 per cent of the country's total power demand by 2025 through renewable energy. This would require providing generous incentives to the prospective investors in the RE sector.