The Government has decided to hire an independent agency to evaluate the ‘actual functioning’ of its solar rooftop projects at ground zero and see if it is benefiting the end-users.

The steps have been taken following inputs that solar rooftop projects are not yielding the desired results and in some cases, it was allegedly being ‘misused’ for other purposes.

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“The Ministry intends to engage reputed consultants and experts to undertake an evaluation of Phase – II of Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Programme as per Terms of Reference (TORs) and Scope of Work given,” said a senior officer of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) here on Tuesday.

The third party selected by the MNRE would not only evaluate the implementation of the project but also collect information from state implementing agencies and identify bottlenecks in the existing implementation process, said a senior officer of the MNRE.

In an Expression of Interest (EOI) invited by the Ministry, it has asked independent inspection agencies for conducting an evaluation of Phase – II of Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Programme. The Grid connected rooftop solar program is a part of the National Solar Mission having a target of 40 GW capacity with grid-connected rooftop solar projects by the year 2022.

Presently the Ministry is implementing Phase-II of the grid-connected rooftop solar program, wherein, installed capacity of 4 GW RTS projects has been targeted to be achieved in the residential sector by the year 2022.

The Ministry has already allocated targets of around 3.3 GW capacity, out of which over 1 GW capacity has been reported to be installed under the program. The Independent Evaluation would collect information from state implementing agencies, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders. It would then evaluate the field performance of installed projects, identify bottlenecks in existing implementation processes and assess the ‘actual’ performance of these components for different stakeholders.

The Independent agency would further recommend that the government could further scale up the program along with required modification in the implementation process of the scheme, the Ministry said.