Even though India is adding more and more generating capacity from solar power, setting examples for many other developing nations, there is a large population of the South Asian nation that has yet to jump on the bandwagon. clean energy: Indian homes. Less than one percent of Indian households have rooftop solar systems. Such slow adoption could hold back Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious renewable energy target. SolarSquare, a startup rushing to sell, install and help people finance solar modules, wants to change that. On Friday, several investors announced that they would back SolarSquare’s dreams. SolarSquare has raised $4 million in a round led by Good Capital. Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital also invested in the company, its first backing in India. Symphony Asia, Rainmatter, Better Capital, Climate Angels and traders such as OYO’s Maninder Gulati, Urban Ladder’s Ashish Goel and NoBroker’s Amit Kumar Agarwal, Akhil Gupta and Saurabh Garg also participated in the round. “The history of power and energy has been that it is produced in highly polluted coal plants, somewhere hundreds of kilometers from your house and there, from the distribution network, it reaches your house. It’s polluting, it’s expensive, and a lot of energy is lost in transmission,” Shreya Mishra, co-founder and CEO of SolarSquare, said in an interview with TechCrunch. “The future is distributed energy, where each home has its own solar panel. It’s much cheaper than buying electricity from the grid and it’s clean,” she said. SolarSquare, which switched to serving the customer segment a year and a half ago after running a profitable business selling rooftop solar to companies for years, has sold solar systems to more than 3,000 homes and apartments in the South Asian market. . “Our average household is saving up to $650 on their electric bill each year,” she said. SolarSquare systems and installation cost around $1,500 and have a 25-year lifespan. The equation is simple, said Mishra, who previously ran an e-commerce business. “You get free electricity for 21 years.”SolarSquare founders and executives (Image credits: SolarSquare) SolarSquare, which currently has a presence in Delhi-NCR, Maharashtra, Bengaluru, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, installs its solar panels in 8 hours, compared to some legacy companies that take up to five days. . In some houses, at the request of the clients, it builds an additional ramp for mounting the panels. “Climate change issues are real and pressing. As a company, we are committed to partnering with best-in-class entrepreneurs who are addressing the challenges in this market. We are delighted to partner with Shreya, Neeraj and Nikhil as they set out to build India’s leading residential solar brand,” said Rohan Malhotra, managing partner of Good Capital, in a statement. Indian companies making inroads into Indian residences will help the South Asian nation’s renewable energy goal. Coal currently powers 70% of India’s electricity generation, but Modi has pledged that India will produce more power through solar and other renewables than its entire grid now by 2030. He has taken action. to help start-ups like SolarSquare. New Delhi offers subsidies to rooftop solar-powered homeowners, allowing them to distribute the excess power they generate to grids during the day and use grid power at night. The startup plans to deploy the fresh funds to expand its presence in India and also build a technology stack for consumers to help them track their solar performance in real time. Mishra is confident that India will see a similar type of adoption in roof systems as it has with smartphones and mobile internet. “India is already the third largest electricity consumer in the world, and they will add capacity the size of Europe in the next twenty years just to meet demand. Solar Square will help drive that growth with its one-day rooftop solar installations, which are already making energy cheaper and more reliable for thousands of Indian households,” Clay Dumas, general partner at Lowercarbon, said in a statement.
