Date of Publication :7th March 2017

Abstract: A large majority of the industrial and working population of developing countries like India live in cities, especially metropolitan centres like Bangalore. Also, a vast amount of power is consumed in such cities. These factors coupled with the ageing infrastructure of transmission and distribution systems in India give a highly unstable power system structure. Also, there is a vast distance between the load centres like the cities and the generating stations. The growing urban loads tax the already overloaded infrastructure and lead to increased loss, drop in reliability, increased failure rates and possibilities of blackouts and heavy maintenance cost. It also escalates the need for replacement. But given the current economic scenario, one can easily ascertain that such a nation-wide restructuring and replacement of power system hardware is virtually impossible. The best possible solution to such a technoeconomic crisis is by making the consumers generate electricity locally, by means of rooftop solar panels (PV). But such a system is in its infancy around the world and not many residents can afford such a system today in India. A proposal is made, in this paper for the government to sponsor the setting up of solar PVs over every house that has the necessary minimum requirements. The economic analysis of such a decision has been made with a robust mathematical technique called the Optimal Case Fermi methodology. Also, the technical aspects of such a move, namely, the reduction in burden on the grid have been calculated.

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