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Kerala's 10,000 Solar Rooftop Programme is already in full swing with almost half (4700) rooftops signed up by mid-January 2013. Any Keralaite with 15 square meters of unshaded rooftop area can register (http://ddr.anert.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116) to set up a 1 KW-peak system on their roof. The programme counts on each solar rooftop plant costing in total about Rs.

Every niche has its own lingo and Energy might have one of the most complicated ones around. Just as an example energy can be measured in six different ways! - Joule, Calorie, Tonne Oil Equvalent,  Watt hour, British Thermal Unit and Tonne Coal Equivalent. (For a good converter see: http://www.iea.org/stats/unit.asp ).

Grid-connected solar power is growing fast in India, going from just a few megawatt (MW) in 2009 to over 1000 MW by mid-2012. 1000 MW of solar power can supply over 20 lakh Indians with electricity. Solar uses no fuel and is therefore one of the greenest ways of generating electricity. While many of the largest solar powered countries have focused mainly on rooftop installations (over half of German solar power capacity is on rooftops) almost all of India's solar power is generated through large plants installed on the ground (mainly in the semi-desertous areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan).

Delhi needs to critically rethink its move to abandon roof top solar scheme

Jonas Hamberg stumbles on fictitious companies dealing in public funds. It was all there on the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation (RREC) website—names of companies, addresses and phone numbers. But calling them up did not work. We were to find out the reason later. I am talking about the companies that Lanco Infratech used as fronts to get hold of more solar capacity than it was allowed under JNNSM, acronym for Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. We wanted to know more about these companies.

Less than a kilometer from Asia's largest Solar Termal plant, west of Bikaner, Rajasthan, lives the farmer Sabhu Khan. His hamlet is still unreached by the grid. Instead of the grid connection, he decided to go for an off-grid solar system – He bought it himself, at full market price – for Rs. 9500 and a 12 volt car-battery – locally made and with a 1 year guarantee.