The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has released the draft guidelines related to central financial assistance and payment security for RE services companies (RESCO) and sutility-led aggregation models under the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

In June 2024, the Ministry issued scheme guidelines for release of central financial assistance (CFA) to residential consumers for installations undertaken by them through registered vendors.

However, the guidelines did not cover RESCO or the utility-led or State (government)-led aggregation models (ULA).

Under RESCO, a third-party RE company can procure, install and maintain the rooftop solar system for at least five years with consumers paying for the electricity generated on a tariff basis to the RESCO operator. The consumer may be compensated by the operator for roof utilisation rights. Plant ownership may be transferred to the consumer after at least five years.

The RESCO operator can also enter into an arrangement with the Discom to sell power to the grid under a power purchase agreement. Under the utility-led asset model, a state Dsicom owns the rooftop solar systems for at least five years, after which the ownership will be transferred to the household.

The rooftop solar installation may include additional technology components such as small wind hybrids, battery storage, solar tracker systems etc.

However, the CFA calculation shall be based on the CFA structure under the scheme as per capacity of solar modules installed in the system,” it added.

Households with pre-existing rooftop solar systems shall not be considered eligible under RESCO and ULA models for the PM Surya Ghar scheme, the guidelines proposed.

Besides, under the payment security mechanism, the MNRE proposed a corpus of ₹100 crore to ensure payment security.

The payment security mechanism would be managed and administered by the national programme implementation agency.

Under proposals for utility led aggregation model, the utility can access payment security mechanisms in order to provide payment security for projects in which RESCO partners have been contracted with, through an open transparent bidding process for tariff discovery.

Under the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, approved on February 29, 2024, to increase share of solar rooftop capacity and empower residential households to generate their own electricity. The scheme has an outlay of Rs 75,021 crore and is to be implemented till FY27.