Shri Piyush Goyal to Inaugurate National Workshop on Rooftop Solar Power Shri Upendra Tripathy, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said that Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, and New & Renewable Energy will inaugurate National Workshop on Roof Top Solar (RTS) Power on 7th June 2016. He said that the aim of the workshop is to act as a helpdesk and felicitate people in installing rooftop solar projects. While interacting with media, Shri Tripathy said that these rooftop projects transforms homes into investment and empowers owner with loss free electricity. The Secretary appealed for mass involvement through media and said that people participation will become key for solar revolution in the country. Shri Tripathy said that the Ministry will soon be coming out with a policy for resolving issue of storage and thereby providing stability to the grid. He informed that storage linked bidding of 200MW solar power will be organised in Andhra Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh very soon. Speaking on the occasion Shri Santosh D. Vaidya, Joint Secretary, MNRE told that the Minister will be felicitating the best performing Ministries/Departments, State/UT Governments, State Nodal Agencies, State/UT Electricity Regulatory Commissions and Channel Partners during the event. The Ministries and Departments will also present Commitment Certificates for developing RTS power. He further informed that Surya Mitra App will also be launched at the event. Shri Vaidya further said that workshop will comprise of presentations and discussions on various topics including best practices, innovative projects and major policy initiatives on RTS power projects. Around 1400 participants including Secretaries from the Central Government, Chief Secretaries from the State Governments, Power and Urban Development Principal Secretaries of State Governments, State Nodal Agencies, Chiefs of DISCOMs, banking and financial institutions, Channel Partners of rooftop schemes, major solar power developers, international agencies like GIZ, KFW, US Aid, World Bank and other stakeholders will be attending the Workshop. BACKGROUND Government of India has taken an ambitious target of 40,000 MW of Roof Top Solar (RTS) power as part of Clean Climate commitments. To achieve this target, the Central/State/UT Governments and Central/State Electricity Regulatory Commissions have undertaken several initiatives and promotional measures. Some of the key initiatives/promotional measures are: (a) Financial subsidy of 30% of project/bench mark cost for RTS projects in Residential/Institutional/Social sectors; (b) Financial incentive upto 25% of project/bench mark cost for RTS projects in Government/PSU sector; (c) Notification of Gross/Net metering policies by various States/UT Regulatory Commissions; (d) Financial support to RTS projects by various State/UT Governments; (e) Development of easy to access Online Portals by Distribution Companies (DISCOMS) for installation of RTS plants by individual consumers; (f) Empanelment of agencies with proven capacity and expertise for installation of solar panels, inverters, meters, etc. by various State/UT Governments; (g) Empanelment of Channel Partners/Aggregators by Central/State Governments; (h) Assessment of RTS potential and undertaking bidding process for cost efficient solar installations in various sectors; (i) Training of 10,000 Surya Mitra and staffs of DISCOMs/SNAs; (j) Provision of concessional credit to project developers. RM/PS
