- How much does a rooftop system actually generate in Hyderabad?
- What size are you actually allowed to install?
- Who actually gets the PM Surya Ghar subsidy?
- What happens to the units you export?
- The application, the fee and the timeline
- What the roof has to give you before any of this matters
- What a quotation should tell you, and usually does not
- How we handle this at Simfy Homes
- When we are not the right fit
- Frequently asked questions
Almost every solar quotation you will be shown in Hyderabad leads with the subsidy. For a large house, the subsidy is usually the one number on the page that does not apply to you.
The rule is short and it decides everything that follows. PM Surya Ghar is open to residential connections with a sanctioned load of 10 kW or below. A villa running three or four air conditioners, a lift, a borewell pump and a kitchen is very often sanctioned above that, and the moment it is, the ₹78,000 stops being part of the arithmetic.
That is not an argument against solar on a large home. It is an argument for judging it on the things that actually govern the return — roof area, orientation, what your DISCOM allows you to install, and what it pays you for what you export. This guide sets out those numbers for Hyderabad, and sits alongside our wider note on sustainable home construction in Hyderabad.
How much does a rooftop system actually generate in Hyderabad?
A unit is what your electricity bill counts. TGSPDCL states that a rooftop system generates around 1,000 to 1,200 units a year for every kilowatt you install, if the panels face south. Turning them east or west loses roughly 20 per cent of that.
Take the middle of that range and a kilowatt earns you about 1,100 units a year, or a little over three units a day averaged across the seasons. It is worth holding that figure in your head, because it converts a quotation into something you can check against your own bill.
A house consuming 900 units a month — not unusual for a large Hyderabad home in summer — is using 10,800 units a year. Covering that entirely on south-facing panels needs roughly 10 kW. On an east-west split roof, at TGSPDCL’s own 20 per cent penalty, the same coverage needs closer to 12 kW. That difference is decided by the roof you already have, which is why it belongs in the architecture conversation and not the vendor conversation.
| System size | South-facing, per year | East/west, per year | Roughly covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 kW | ~3,300 units | ~2,640 units | a modest household |
| 5 kW | ~5,500 units | ~4,400 units | ~450 units a month |
| 10 kW | ~11,000 units | ~8,800 units | ~900 units a month |
| 15 kW | ~16,500 units | ~13,200 units | a large villa with heavy cooling |
Generation figures follow TGSPDCL’s 1,000–1,200 units per kW per year, taken at 1,100, with TGSPDCL’s 20 per cent reduction applied for east and west.
What size are you actually allowed to install?
TGSPDCL permits residential consumers to install up to 100 per cent of the consumer’s sanctioned load, with a minimum of 1 kWp and a maximum of 1 MWp, and restricts single-phase consumers to 5 kW.
The sanctioned load ceiling is the constraint people meet first and understand last. If your connection is sanctioned at 8 kW, you may install 8 kW of solar — not the 12 kW your roof and your consumption would happily support. Raising the sanctioned load is a separate application to the DISCOM, and it changes your fixed charges, so it is a decision to take deliberately rather than discover halfway through an installation.
The single-phase 5 kW restriction catches smaller homes. If you are on single phase and the plan is a 6 or 8 kW array, the conversion to three phase has to happen first. On a new build this is trivial to plan for and expensive to retrofit, which puts it in the same category as the other services decisions in our stage-by-stage construction sequence.
Who actually gets the PM Surya Ghar subsidy?
Residential connections with a sanctioned load of 10 kW or below, on a grid-connected rooftop system, where the system capacity does not exceed the sanctioned load. Reslink Energy sets the amounts at ₹30,000 for 1 kW, ₹60,000 for 2 kW and ₹78,000 for 3 kW and above, with ₹78,000 as the ceiling.
Reslink Energy is blunt about the part the market misrepresents: a customer installing a 5 kW system receives the same ₹78,000 as a customer installing 3 kW. The subsidy stops growing at 3 kW. Every kilowatt above that is paid for in full by you.
Run the two rules together and the picture for a large home is clear. Below 10 kW sanctioned load, you can claim, but only ₹78,000 of it. Above 10 kW sanctioned load, you claim nothing at all — and a house with a 15 kW connection that installs 15 kW of solar receives less support than a flat installing 3 kW. Any quotation for a large villa that shows ₹78,000 deducted from the price is either wrong about your connection or hoping you will not check it.
| Your sanctioned load | Max system TGSPDCL allows | PM Surya Ghar subsidy |
|---|---|---|
| 3 kW, single phase | 3 kW | ₹78,000 |
| 5 kW, single phase | 5 kW (single-phase cap) | ₹78,000 |
| 8 kW, three phase | 8 kW | ₹78,000 |
| 10 kW, three phase | 10 kW | ₹78,000 |
| 15 kW, three phase | 15 kW | none — above the eligibility ceiling |
What happens to the units you export?
TGSPDCL states that where you export more than you import, the net units are credited to your service connection account, carried forward and adjusted against the next month’s bill, with excess credits settled twice a year — in June and December — at the average cost of power purchase, paid into your bank account.
Two things follow from that sentence, and they are the two that decide whether a system is sized well.
The first is that carry-forward makes seasonal over-generation useful. A system that overshoots in the clear months from November to February builds credit that offsets the summer, when the air conditioning runs and the panels are working under haze. You are not wasting the winter surplus.
The second is that cash settlement is not at your tariff. It is at the average cost of power purchase, which is materially lower than the retail rate you pay per unit. Units you consume yourself are worth your tariff; units you sell twice a year are worth much less. That is the whole case against oversizing an array to farm export revenue, and it is why sizing should follow your own consumption pattern rather than your available roof.
The application, the fee and the timeline
TGSPDCL sets the application fee for LT consumers at ₹2,500, requires a separate bi-directional meter rated to the consumer’s sanctioned load in place of the existing meter, and states that permission is granted within 21 days from the date of receipt of a proper application.
On the subsidy side the process runs in parallel and is slower. Reslink Energy describes the central subsidy as paid directly to the customer’s bank account by Direct Benefit Transfer after the system is commissioned and verified by the DISCOM, typically within 30 days of a valid request, with end-to-end processing of 45 to 90 days. The bank account has to be Aadhaar-seeded or the transfer will not process.
One condition disqualifies more homeowners than any technical fault. Reslink Energy states that the installer must be empanelled with the local DISCOM or state nodal agency, and that self-installation, or installation by a contractor not registered on the national portal, makes the customer ineligible for the subsidy regardless of equipment quality. If the subsidy matters to you, confirm the empanelment before the advance, not after.
There is also an equipment condition worth knowing. Reslink Energy records that ALMM List-I compliance for modules remains mandatory, while MNRE extended a blanket exemption from ALMM List-II — the domestic-cell requirement — for all net-metering and open-access projects to 31 December 2026. Ask which lists your quoted modules sit on and ask for the certificate numbers.
What the roof has to give you before any of this matters
Shade-free area, a slope and orientation you can use, and a structure that will still be doing this in twenty years. None of it can be fixed after the terrace is cast.
The rule of thumb is roughly 100 square feet of clear roof per kilowatt, so a 10 kW array wants about 1,000 square feet with nothing standing over it. That is a real constraint on a Hyderabad terrace already carrying water tanks, a stair headroom, lift machine room, ducting and a solar water heater — and the shadow of each of those moves across the roof through the day and through the year.
Three decisions made at design stage decide whether the roof is usable:
- Where the tanks and the stair block go. Pushed to the north edge, they shade nothing useful. Placed centrally, they cut the array in half.
- Whether the parapet is tall enough to shade the first row. A high parapet on the south side takes the most productive strip of roof out of service every winter, when the sun is lowest.
- Whether the slab was designed for the load and the anchors. A mounting structure is bolted down, and those bolts are penetrations through a waterproofed terrace. Planned in, they are detailed and sealed. Retrofitted, they are the commonest new source of a leak — the point our guide on waterproofing a home in Hyderabad keeps returning to.
If the house is still on the drawing board, this is the least expensive conversation you will ever have about solar. Even if you do not install on day one, leaving a clear south-facing field, a conduit route from roof to meter and a slab designed for the anchors costs almost nothing now.
Keeping the south face of the terrace clear costs nothing now and cannot be added later. We plan for it whether or not you install on day one.
What a quotation should tell you, and usually does not
Ask for four numbers: the generation estimate with the orientation it assumes, your sanctioned load against the proposed capacity, the subsidy position stated honestly for your connection, and what happens to export at settlement rather than at your tariff.
In our experience the same three gaps recur across quotations for large homes. A generation figure with no orientation stated, so an east-west roof is being priced as though it were south-facing. A capacity above the sanctioned load, which the DISCOM will not sanction. And a subsidy line for a connection that is not eligible. All three are visible on the first page if you know to look.
- Generation, with orientation. Units per year, and whether it assumes south, or east/west with the reduction applied.
- Capacity against sanctioned load. Your load in kW, the proposed array in kW, and confirmation the second does not exceed the first.
- Subsidy, stated for your connection. Eligible or not, and if eligible, ₹78,000 and not a rupee more above 3 kW.
- Empanelment. The installer’s registration on the national portal, in writing.
- Module list status. ALMM List-I certificate numbers for the modules quoted.
- Roof interface. How the anchors penetrate the waterproofing and how they are sealed, drawn rather than described.
How we handle this at Simfy Homes
Where a client wants solar, we keep the roof clear for it while the terrace is still being planned — tanks and stair block to the north, the parapet height checked against winter shadow, conduit run from roof to meter position, and the slab designed for the mounting loads and anchor points. The waterproofing detail at each anchor is drawn before the terrace is laid rather than improvised on top of it.
We do not install solar ourselves, and we say so plainly. What we do is make sure the house does not fight the installation later, and read the quotation with you against your sanctioned load and your actual consumption. If you are planning a build and this is on your list, talk to our team before the terrace design is frozen.
When we are not the right fit
If the goal is the shortest payback available and the subsidy is the reason for doing it, a 3 kW array on the simplest possible mounting will beat anything we would design around, and an installer who does only that will serve you better than we would. We plan for solar on homes where the roof has to carry it for decades without leaking and without being redesigned — which costs a little more at slab stage and pays back over the life of the terrace, not the life of the quotation.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get the ₹78,000 subsidy on a large villa?
Only if the sanctioned load is 10 kW or below. Reslink Energy lists that as a core eligibility condition, alongside a residential connection and a grid-connected rooftop system whose capacity does not exceed the sanctioned load. Many large homes are sanctioned above 10 kW and are therefore outside the scheme entirely.
How many units will 10 kW give me in Hyderabad?
On TGSPDCL’s own figures, around 10,000 to 12,000 units a year on south-facing panels, and roughly 20 per cent less on east or west orientations. Averaged out that is about 30 units a day, which is what a large home with heavy summer cooling tends to consume.
Does a bigger system mean a bigger subsidy?
No. Reslink Energy is explicit that the subsidy caps at ₹78,000 for 3 kW and above, so a 5 kW system receives exactly what a 3 kW system receives. Everything above 3 kW is funded entirely by you.
What do I get paid for the electricity I export?
Net exported units are credited to your service connection account and carried forward against the next month’s bill. TGSPDCL settles any excess twice a year, in June and December, at the average cost of power purchase — which is lower than the retail tariff you pay, so self-consumption is worth more than export.
How long does approval take?
TGSPDCL states that permission is granted within 21 days of receiving a proper application, against a ₹2,500 fee for LT consumers. The subsidy runs on a separate clock: Reslink Energy puts the transfer at typically 30 days after a valid post-commissioning request, with 45 to 90 days end to end.
Can I install it myself or use my own electrician?
Not if you want the subsidy. Reslink Energy states that self-installation, or installation by a contractor not registered on the national portal, makes the customer ineligible regardless of equipment quality. The installer must be empanelled with the DISCOM or the state nodal agency.
Will the mounting damage my waterproofing?
It can, and this is the failure we see most often on retrofits. Every anchor is a penetration through the terrace membrane. Detailed and sealed at design stage it is a non-issue; drilled into a finished terrace it becomes a leak that appears a monsoon or two later, usually in the room below.
Should I leave provision for solar even if I am not installing now?
Yes, and it is close to free while the slab is being designed. A clear south-facing field, tanks and stair block pushed north, a conduit from roof to meter, and a slab checked for the mounting loads. Adding all of that afterwards costs many times more than allowing for it once.
Design, approvals, execution and handover with one team accountable for all of it.
The Simfy Homes teamSimfy Homes designs and builds bespoke homes, villas and interiors across Hyderabad and Goa, with one accountable team from first sketch to handover.
