Planning a rooftop solar setup

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In 2018 towards the end government put safe guard duties due to lobbying from local panel maker mainly adani, now that it has expired they want now to put 20% duties starting from april next year for imported cells and upto 40% for ready made panel imports.
But even with that SGD duties for 2 years panel prices continued to drop. by about 10% each year. So this duties in 2022 will basically make the prices the same as 2020, shipping now is expensive, so that coupled with increased GST we may see the price same as 2019 price.

Off all the fully imported panels that I saw in two trade shows, there price was about 10% cheaper but these small firms/traders importing them will guarantee to wash their hands off when it comes to warranty.

So I was looking at mostly panels made in india but with imported cells.
 
adder said:
In 2018 towards the end government put safe guard duties due to lobbying from local panel maker mainly adani, now that it has expired they want now to put 20% duties starting from april next year for imported cells and upto 40% for ready made panel imports.
But even with that SGD duties for 2 years panel prices continued to drop. by about 10% each year. So this duties in 2022 will basically make the prices the same as 2020, shipping now is expensive, so that coupled with increased GST we may see the price same as 2019 price.

Off all the fully imported panels that I saw in two trade shows, there price was about 10% cheaper but these small firms/traders importing them will guarantee to wash their hands off when it comes to warranty.

So I was looking at mostly panels made in india but with imported cells.
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So what's the best play right now? Wait 6 months for Indian manufacturing to catch up? Any good Indian manufacturers for large bifacial panels? 500W ish.
 
Indian manufactures will obviously be competitive once duties come into effect. But assuming dollar says the same and shipping costs stays the same, due to scale and faster adoption of EVs which inturn leads to more solar cell production the price will continue to fall both by domestic and international cell makers. So we have to see the delta between that price drop vs inflation.
 
JMP said:
Our actual requirement is around 4 kW, but most states in India have started to remove net metering as it is not profitable for the DISCOMs.
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This might have been the case in Nov 2020 when you posted but there's been some movement since


That's the latest i can find as of Jun 2021


My issue with solar is figuring out the payback time which is a function of how long the panel will last.

It takes 5 years to pay back for the panels after which you can start to make savings on power consumption.

Now a good panel has a warranty of 25 years. But the ones we get here i think are no more than 10.

Is a ten year old panel going to generate as much as a brand new one ? likely not.

The next bit is actually making use of that power and where it will go. For commercial establishments who work during the day time it makes the most sense.

But for residential, either your load is less than what solar generates or you are drawing from the grid or your batteries.

Also to feed back into the system you will be drawing from batteries which increases the cycles you put on them. They will need to be replaced at some point and there goes your savings from the panels.

Solar might make sense without batteries in which case you will need a lot of them. You have to figure optimal placement and account for lower throughput during cloudy days of which we have a lot of in Karnataka.

It's quite complex figuring out whether you are making anything or not when it comes to solar :bored:
 
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Yes, things have changed a bit, but ESCOMs are still fighting against net metering. The limit now is 500 Kw in Karnataka I suppose.

blr_p said:
Now a good panel has a warranty of 25 years. But the ones we get here i think are no more than 10.
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AFAIK, panels with 12 year product warranty and 25-30 year performance warranty are widely available in India.
Degradation rate is mentioned in the datasheet.

blr_p said:
But for residential, either your load is less than what solar generates or you are drawing from the grid or your batteries.

Also to feed back into the system you will be drawing from batteries which increases the cycles you put on them. They will need to be replaced at some point and there goes your savings from the panels.

Solar might make sense without batteries in which case you will need a lot of them.
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One could go with a on-grid + ups or hybrid setup for this case, where the ESCOM would act as a power bank, as long as you have net metering.

blr_p said:
It's quite complex figuring out whether you are making anything or not when it comes to solar
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For me, more than returns it is about not having to rely on the perpetual ineptitude of the ESCOM and energy independence.
Electricity is already a viable alternative for intra city transport, for many. It'll not be long before the government starts increasing taxes or applying levies on it, just like they did with fuel.
 
Hey,
Just adding a data point.

I contacted Loom solar today for 3kva off grid installation. They quoted, 23k for 500W mono crystal, half cut panels(6 total panels for 3KVA setup), 17-18k for 150Ah lead acid batteries and 30-35k for a 3kva Solar inverter.
Also contacted vikram solar but their distributor is not willing to come to my town to install everything because he is a bit far away from my town.

There are some local solar installers as well(1 from luminious and 1 more person) but I want to go for high wattage panels and luminious only has ~350kw panels. (Space is not an issue but idk, I prefer higher wattage panels).

Loom solar has a bunch of videos on youtube and their installation looks quite professional. I don't know if local installers will do everything _properly_. I also wanted a hybrid setup but that is a lot of work. :/

Also, Does anyone here have experience claiming subsidy in residential setups? They offer 30-40% subsidy upto 3kw and the process seems a bit confusing. I am not even sure if I can claim subsidy for a fully offgrid installation?
 
ishanjain28 said:
Hey,
Just adding a data point.

I contacted Loom solar today for 3kva off grid installation. They quoted, 23k for 500W mono crystal, half cut panels(6 total panels for 3KVA setup), 17-18k for 150Ah lead acid batteries and 30-35k for a 3kva Solar inverter.
Also contacted vikram solar but their distributor is not willing to come to my town to install everything because he is a bit far away from my town.

There are some local solar installers as well(1 from luminious and 1 more person) but I want to go for high wattage panels and luminious only has ~350kw panels. (Space is not an issue but idk, I prefer higher wattage panels).

Loom solar has a bunch of videos on youtube and their installation looks quite professional. I don't know if local installers will do everything _properly_. I also wanted a hybrid setup but that is a lot of work. :/

Also, Does anyone here have experience claiming subsidy in residential setups? They offer 30-40% subsidy upto 3kw and the process seems a bit confusing. I am not even sure if I can claim subsidy for a fully offgrid installation?
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Get on grid install then make it offgrid after getting subsidy :D
 
adder said:
Also all the price quoted to you seems quite high. Does it include panel mount structure and installation .
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I will not be buying batteries from them since I can buy them from local distributors for 14-15k(150Ah, tubular lead acid batteries). I will ask them if the panel cost includes structure/installation cost.
 
Party Monger said:
Get on grid install then make it offgrid after getting subsidy :D
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Yeah, This or a hybrid setup seems like a more sensible decision because they are building a huge power plant nearby. So in a few years, I'll probably see less power cuts reducing the utility of a off grid setup.

But applications for ongrid installations has closed on 31/8/2021 and I don't get the option to apply anymore on their site.
Party Monger said:
Dont get those. Get Lithium ferrophosphate batteries.
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LiFePo4 batteries are still considerably more expensive than lead acid batteries and I already have a 1KW(non solar setup which was built very recently). I'd rather use the batteries from that setup than discard/sell both of them and go all in on a lithium setup.
 
@adder Are cells with more than 3000 cycles (other than Vision Mechatronics) available in India?
I was looking at this EG4 Battery which is rated for 7000 cycles and was wondering if such a thing is possible in India.
 
JMP said:
@adder Are cells with more than 3000 cycles (other than Vision Mechatronics) available in India?
I was looking at this EG4 Battery which is rated for 7000 cycles and was wondering if such a thing is possible in India.
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Most of the dealers sell B grade cells which they get for cheaper price. So even vision mechatronics refused to provide the make or model of the cell or even share the datasheet. So no way to know if they actually use cells of high cycles.

Unknown cell companies also dont last as long as the claimed life.

If we want to get good cells we need to get EV batteries from crashed vehicles that use LFP type batteries, those are A spec cells.
 
adder said:
If we want to get good cells we need to get EV batteries from crashed vehicles that use LFP type batteries, those are A spec cells.
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Is that feasible in India? I mean I checked with a Nexon EV service center, they don't have any contact for scrap battery dealers.
 
JMP said:
Is that feasible in India? I mean I checked with a Nexon EV service center, they don't have any contact for scrap battery dealers
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Sometimes it comes up on olx, months back there was a Ad for nexon battery from a totaled vehicle. This will only increase has more and more people buy EVs, with proportional increases in crashes.
 
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