State Bank of India (SBI) and the World Bank have inked agreements for a $625 million (around Rs 4,200 crore) facility to support grid-connected rooftop solar programme (GRPV) in the country. This will help SBI in financing GRPV projects at competitive rates.

This  will catalyse the market and support the government to faster achieve its target to generate 40 gigawatt (Gw) of electricity from the widespread installation of rooftop solar photo-voltaic panels. The eligible beneficiaries under the facility would be developers, aggregators and end-users, who wish to set up solar PV projects, mainly on commercial, industrial and institutional rooftops.

The programme also aims at improving the investment climate for solar PV, and increase the ‘ease of doing rooftop business’ through technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of key institutions, and support development of the overall solar rooftop PV market.