Urban PV: An Innovative Pathway for Resilience in India’s Metro Cities

Most Indian cities are urbanising at an unprecedented rate, even as climate change intensifies extreme heat events. Not only is electrical demand rising along with populations and electric vehicles, but cooling loads are also increasing steadily. Given the scarcity of land, planners need to innovate on how to weave decentralised, distributed renewable energy resources into the fabric of the city.

Since the inception of the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, more than 23 GW of rooftop solar has been installed. This significant progress can be attributed to falling technology costs, amenable policy frameworks and capital subsidies, improved access to affordable finance, and increasing robustness of the system integrator ecosystem. However, most states have only tapped into a fraction of their rooftop solar potential. Further ingenuity lies in combining gardening and horticulture below the panels. Partial shading supports specific plants, including flowers, fruits (papaya, strawberries and others), vegetables (tubers, tomatoes, capsicum and others) and leafy greens. Urban agriphotovoltaics (AgriPV) on ‘green roofs’ contribute to food security and better air quality. 

With the paradigm shift in the Indian real estate sector towards vertical urbanism, the opportunities for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are endless, with the potential across India’s existing building stock estimated at around 309 GW. Although at a nascent stage in terms of technology and application, they have the potential to reimagine how façades, balconies, parapets, and other architectural elements will look in the near future. BIPV can be designed to balance daylighting, thermal comfort, and power generation. Dense neighbourhoods experiencing severe heat stress benefit from such urban PV-based passive cooling architecture, with strengthened adaptive capacity. 

As more and more cities embrace serpentine metro-rail infrastructure running through major corridors, noise pollution becomes an issue that cannot be ignored. Vertical bifacial solar panels on either side of the metro viaducts can act as sound barriers while providing clean power for traction systems. 

Scaling up these disruptive solutions requires evolving government policies and markets with new business models. Strategic philanthropic capital and ecosystem partnerships will play a critical role in urban energy transitions. Capacity building and data-driven, scientific, and structured approaches need to be undertaken by think tanks, architects, real estate moguls, research institutions, and urban planners.

Derisking finance for these innovations and standardising guidelines and building bylaws for innovative technologies such as BIPV and Urban AgriPV will improve uptake. With the pace at which Indian metros are growing, embedding clean energy generation and climate resilience into the built environment will be an essential pillar of a sustainable urban future. 

Written by Saptak Ghosh who heads the Renewables and Energy Conservation sector at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a research-based think tank.