Commercial and industrial
Rooftop solar for business.
Commercial rooftops are often the strongest case for solar in Kerala, and it has nothing to do with subsidy — there isn't one. It is that a business consumes power in daylight, at a higher tariff, on a roof that is usually large and unshaded.
Why the numbers work better here.
A shop, an office or a factory draws most of its power between morning and evening, which is exactly when an array produces. That alignment is worth more than it sounds. Every unit generated and consumed on site displaces a unit bought at the commercial tariff, while units exported are settled at the lower banked rate. A load profile that matches generation keeps almost everything on the valuable side of that line.
Residential systems rarely achieve this. A house is empty during the day and busy after dark, so a larger share of its generation is exported rather than self-consumed.
No subsidy, and it still pays.
PM Surya Ghar is a residential scheme. Commercial, industrial and institutional connections are outside it, and any quote suggesting otherwise is mistaken. Delta's savings calculator returns zero subsidy for a commercial connection rather than flattering the estimate.
What replaces it is a higher displaced tariff and the ability to treat the installation as a depreciating business asset. Businesses in India can claim accelerated depreciation on solar plant, which changes the after-tax cost materially. Your accountant, not your solar installer, should tell you what that is worth in your case — but it belongs in the calculation.
Net metering at commercial scale.
The mechanism is the same as a home: a bidirectional net meter records import and export, a renewable energy meter records generation, and you are billed on the net. All grid-interactive applications go through the Solar Rooftop Portal – Kerala.
Capacity is where commercial installations differ, and where Kerala's rules are currently moving. KSEB publishes a maximum of 1 MWp at a single location, but the wider framework is mid-revision — the KSERC regulations notified in November 2025 were stayed by the High Court shortly afterwards, and published summaries of the new limits contradict each other. We confirm what applies to your connection before designing, rather than quoting a number that may not be in force.
Bill reduction is not backup.
A grid-tied commercial system shuts down when the grid does, like any other. If production continuity is the requirement, the brief changes: the question stops being "how do we cut the bill" and becomes "what must keep running, and for how long". That is a hybrid or generator conversation, and it is sized from critical load rather than from consumption.
It is worth separating the two objectives before spending on either, because the cheapest answer to each is a different system.
Installing over a working business.
Rooftop work is largely independent of what happens under the roof. The parts that touch your operation are the changeover and the KSEB inspection, both short, and both schedulable around your hours. Larger roofs take longer, but the interruption does not scale with the array.
