Impact of solar rooftop Policy on residential consumers in state of Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand is bestowed with ample sunshine throughout the year, making solar power generation successful in the state. Despite the rapid scaling up of Solar Rooftop Systems connected to the grid in recent years, the actual-benefits to residential consumers in the long run for using this technology has not been assessed. It is important-for policy makers to fully recognizes which policy, or combination of policies, promoting solar PV applications-has the greatest economic benefit. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of Uttarakhand state solar policy on-residential consumers opting to install Rooftop solar systems connected to grid under net metering arrangement. Real-time energy consumption and generation data for 60 residential consumers have been studied to monitor-cost benefit analysis of installed projects. The result shows the impact of policy is high on three factors; Monitory-savings due to export of extra units generated, mitigation of issues of migration of local people from hills to cities in search of livelihood options and reduction in CO₂ emissions due to clean generation in the state.