It’s not just large businesses; even apartment buildings are shifting to solar to reduce their common-area power costs. An apartment in Bengaluru reduced its common-area power expenditure by 30-40% with a 500 kW rooftop solar system.

The L&T South City apartment in Bengaluru, with 1,998 flats, utilizes a rooftop system to power the society’s common utilities, lifts, lighting, and water pumps.

The apartment installed a rooftop solar system after realizing that, amid rising grid tariffs, it was incurring high electricity costs for powering its common areas. Before the installation of the rooftop system, the apartment was incurring an expenditure of ₹1.5 million (~$15,986.4) per month, an estimated ₹18 million (~$191,837) annually.

The solar system was installed with a net investment of ₹19.5 million (~$208,581) with a central financial assistance (CFA) of ₹9 million (~$96,268) under the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

The PM Surya Ghar Program provides a subsidy for group housing societies for projects up to 500 kW, with a cap of 3 kW per household and a subsidy of ₹18,000 (~$193)/kW.

The rooftop system was commissioned by SolarSquare in June 2025.

The system utilizes Premier Energies’ 546 Wp DCR MonoPERC half-cut bifacial modules and is coupled with SolarEdge’s 33 kV inverters.

The solar system generates 2,300 to 2,500 units per day and is estimated to generate 70,000 units per month.

The system is estimated to yield annual savings of ₹4.5 million (~$47,959.2) to ₹5.5 million (~$58,616.8) and is expected to deliver returns within 3.5 years.

The apartment was able to shorten the payback period with support from the CFA under the PM Surya Ghar Program.

Commending the streamlined process for availing a subsidy under the PM Surya Ghar program, R. Rajagopalan noted that the apartment received subsidy credit within two days of applying on the PM Surya Ghar portal.

However, he also highlighted that the provision of free electricity in Karnataka for the residential sector has become a major disincentive for consumers to adopt rooftop solar systems, while it remains attractive for apartments.

In June 2025, SolarSquare also installed an 810 kW rooftop system for Raheja Vistas, a condominium in Mumbai with over 850 flats, yielding savings of ₹15 million (~$160,447) annually.

Mercom India hosts a pan-India ‘C&I Clean Energy Meet’ series, bringing renewable energy developers and commercial and industrial power consumers together to discuss options for adopting renewable energy. The next event will be held in Mumbai on April 16, 2026.