Shared Community Solar Farms

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New Yorkers Now Enjoy What I Proposed Years Ago 

— Why Are Indian Cities Still Stuck?

Hon’ble Minister,

Ministry of New & Renewable Energy

Government of India

I write to you today with a mixture of gratification and concern.

Gratification — because the world has finally started implementing an idea I have

repeatedly proposed for years.

Concern — because India, especially urban India, continues to ignore the

 biggest obstacle to rooftop solar, leaving millions of citizens behind.

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1. The New York Model — Exactly What I Proposed Years Ago

A recent international report confirms that New York residents can now use

solar power WITHOUT installing a single panel on their rooftops:

🔗 “No panels needed: Solar power arrives”

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/no-panels-needed-solar-power-arrives/23449/

Through shared/community solar, New Yorkers living in high-rise apartments

can subscribe to off-site solar farms and receive bill credits — exactly the “solar-

without-rooftop” model I have been advocating to our Cabinet Ministers for the

past 5–6 years.

New York has implemented it.

New Yorkers are benefiting from it.

Urban Indians are not — and the reason is simple.

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2. Why Indian Cities Cannot Rely on Rooftop Solar

The fundamental mathematics cannot be escaped:

Multi-storey buildings with 20–50 families

 

simply do not have even 10% of the rooftop area needed

 

to generate solar power for all residents.

 

Even if an entire terrace is filled with panels:

• Total capacity remains far below the building’s combined demand

• Shadowing from nearby buildings reduces output

• Water tanks, lift rooms and towers eat into usable space

• Structural, legal and maintenance constraints limit installations

This physical impossibility is the MAIN reason rooftop solar adoption is

stagnant in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

No subsidy, no awareness campaign and no net-metering tweak can create rooftop

area that simply does not exist.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers — living in exactly such high-rise buildings — have

bypassed this constraint entirely.

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3. The Solution I Have Long Advocated: Shared Community Solar Farms

Since long before this New York initiative, I have argued that India must move

away from rooftop-dependent thinking and towards:

• Shared community solar parks

• Virtual net metering

• Citizen subscriptions

• “Solar-as-a-service” sold via DISCOMs

In this model:

• Large solar farms are built anywhere in the country

• 
  (e.g. the desert of Kutch or other high-insolation zones)

• Power is fed into the grid

• Households in Mumbai (or any city) subscribe to a portion of that capacity

• Their electricity bills reflect credits from the remote solar farm

In other words:

Kutch sun → Kutch solar farm → National grid → My flat in Mumbai

This is exactly the logic New York has now adopted.

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4. My Earlier Writings on This Idea 

I have repeatedly explained this approach in my blogs, including:

“Rooftop Solar Business Model” — October 2024

🔗 https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2024/10/rooftop-solar-business-model.html

In that post (and earlier notes) I argued that:

• Urban India will never get meaningful solar penetration through rooftop

• panels on high-rises

• Shared/community solar farms are the only scalable option for cities

• Deserts like Kutch and Rajasthan should host mega-solar parks

• owned/leased by utilities or citizen cooperatives

• Citizens should be allowed to “own” or subscribe to virtual solar

• capacity, irrespective of where they live

New York’s recent experiment essentially validates this line of thinking.

• 
  

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5. What India Should Do Now

1. Launch a National Community Solar Subscription Programme

2. 
   Let citizens, housing societies and MSMEs subscribe to off-site solar capacity and receive bill credits.

3. 
   

4. Enable Virtual Net Metering Nationwide

5. 
   So that a consumer’s “solar share” in Kutch can legally offset their bill in Mumbai, Delhi or Chennai.

6. 
   

7. Develop Mega Community Solar Parks

   • Kutch

   • Thar

   • Ladakh

   • Bundelkhand and other arid belts

   • 
     

8. Allow DISCOMs to Sell “Solar Units” Like Mobile Data Packs

9. 
   Pre-paid / post-paid “X units per month from solar” products for urban consumers.

10. Stop Forcing Rooftop Solar Where It Cannot Work

11. 
    Recognize explicitly that high-rise urban buildings lack the physical rooftop

12.  area required. Policy must evolve beyond this constraint.

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6. Why the New York Comparison Matters

It is ironic that:

• New York is now using a model that I proposed to 

•  government years ago, and

• New Yorkers are already enjoying its benefits, while Mumbaikars and

• other urban Indians still languish under the illusion of rooftop

• sufficiency.

• 
  

India should not be a laboratory of missed opportunities, where our ideas are

implemented abroad before they are even piloted here.

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7. My Humble Request

Hon’ble Minister,

I urge you to initiate city-specific pilots of community/shared solar farms linked to:

• Mumbai Metropolitan Region

• Delhi NCR

• Bengaluru

• Chennai

• Pune and Hyderabad

• 
  

I would be honoured to share more detailed notes, participation models and

designs for such pilots, based on my earlier blogs and calculations.

Respectfully,

Hemen Parekh

www.HemenParekh.ai  /  www.IndiaAGI.ai  /  www.My-Teacher.in / 28 Nov 2025