Your roof is an unpriced asset. Price it.
Businesses pay India's highest electricity tariffs, mostly for daytime consumption — exactly what rooftop solar produces. No subsidy needed: the case stands on avoided tariff and tax treatment. What it needs is honest modelling and procurement discipline, which is what we bring.
The commercial solar case is arithmetic, not idealism. A shop, office, factory or warehouse pays commercial or industrial tariff — typically well above residential rates — and pays it disproportionately for daytime consumption: machines, HVAC, refrigeration, lighting. Rooftop solar generates precisely during those hours. Every self-consumed unit displaces your most expensive purchased unit, and for profit-making entities, accelerated depreciation sharpens the return further. Payback in the 3–5 year range is normal for well-designed systems; everything after that is margin.
What separates a good C&I project from a mediocre one is decided before installation: the load-profile analysis (how much of your consumption actually overlaps generation hours), the state’s metering rules for your size class (net metering, net billing, or banking — they change the export economics materially), the CAPEX-vs-OPEX decision, and the EPC contract’s fine print on performance ratio, warranties and O&M. These are commercial questions dressed as technical ones — and they are where an independent advisor earns their place.
We work on the buyer’s side only: model the savings from your actual bills and tariff category, structure the procurement across vetted C&I EPCs so the bids are comparable, negotiate the contract terms that protect your projected payback, and manage the DISCOM and inspection approvals with a shutdown plan your operations team has approved in advance. For MSMEs making their first energy investment and mid-size plants adding a megawatt alike — the method is the same, only the scale changes.
Six deliverables, buyer-side.
- Tariff & load-profile model
- Twelve months of bills decomposed against your tariff category and daytime load share — the honest baseline every savings claim gets tested against.
- Metering-rule mapping
- What your state's regulations allow for your size class — net metering, net billing, banking limits — and what that does to export economics before you size the plant.
- CAPEX vs OPEX analysis
- Both structures modelled on your numbers: outright purchase with depreciation benefits versus a developer-owned PPA — with a recommendation and its reasoning.
- Disciplined EPC procurement
- One technical specification, vetted bidders, like-for-like commercial comparison, and negotiation support on the terms that actually bite: PR guarantees, warranties, O&M scope.
- Approvals without downtime
- DISCOM application, sanctioned-load questions, electrical-inspector approvals and the grid-connection switchover — sequenced around your operating calendar.
- Performance assurance setup
- Monitoring, performance-ratio tracking and an O&M contract written to defend the payback you were promised — with underperformance flagged while warranties still apply.
Three businesses we serve best.
The MSME factory or warehouse
Daytime-heavy load, industrial tariff, a large uncluttered roof. Usually the cleanest case in Indian solar — the analysis mostly confirms how fast, not whether.
The multi-site retailer or office
Several premises, varied tariffs and roof rights. We triage the portfolio — which sites justify solar now, which don't — and run one procurement across the viable ones.
The finance-led decision-maker
You'll do this if the IRR clears your hurdle rate, not because it's fashionable. Good — that's exactly the standard our models are built to meet, and we'll show the sensitivity analysis.
Three things we’ll say plainly.
- Night-heavy loads weaken the case. If most of your consumption is after dark and your state's export terms are poor, we'll show you that math early — sometimes the right answer is a smaller system, or none yet.
- Tax benefits need your CA. We model accelerated depreciation indicatively; your chartered accountant confirms the treatment for your entity. We don't play tax advisor.
- We don't build or finance. The EPC contract and any financing are directly between you and the providers — our fee never depends on which vendor wins, which is why our comparison can be trusted.
Where to go next
C&I solar: clear answers.
- Generally no capital subsidy — PM Surya Ghar's CFA is for residential consumers. Commercial and industrial solar earns instead through avoided tariff (C&I rates are India's highest), net-metering or net-billing arrangements per state regulations, and tax treatment such as accelerated depreciation for businesses. The economics usually don't need a subsidy.
- A well-designed rooftop system self-consuming most of its generation against commercial or industrial tariffs typically pays back in roughly 3–5 years, faster in high-tariff, high-irradiance situations — after which generation is essentially free for the remainder of a 25-year panel life. Your actual number depends on tariff category, daytime load share, roof and state metering rules; we model it from your bills before you commit to anything.
- Businesses can depreciate solar assets at an accelerated rate under the Income Tax Act (40% WDV has been the operative rate for solar plant and machinery), which front-loads the tax shield and improves project IRR meaningfully for profit-making entities. Confirm current treatment with your CA — tax rules change, and your entity structure matters.
- It shouldn't, if planned. Most rooftop work proceeds without stopping operations; the only mandatory interruption is the grid-connection switchover, which is scheduled — typically off-hours or a planned window. We write the shutdown plan into the contract so 'when do we lose power, and for how long' is answered before signing, not during.
- CAPEX (you buy the system) maximises long-term savings and tax benefits but uses your capital. OPEX/PPA (a developer owns it, you buy the power per unit at a discount to grid) needs no capital but shares the upside and involves a long contract. Roughly: strong balance sheet and long occupancy favour CAPEX; capital constraints or shorter horizons favour OPEX. We model both against your numbers.