Paper
Making Use of the Roof
Employment generation from Hero MotoCorp’s 80 KW Rooftop Solar Project in Haryana India
Arunabha Ghosh, Rajeev Palakshappa, Rishabh Jain, Shalu Agrawal
August 2014 | Energy Transitions, Sustainable Livelihoods
Suggested Citation: Ghosh, Arunabha, Rajeev Palakshappa, Rishabh Jain, Shalu Agarwal. 2014. Making Use of the Roof: Employment Generation from Hero MotoCorp’s 80 kW Rooftop Solar Project in Haryana India. New Delhi; New York: Council on Energy, Environment and Water and Natural Resources Defense Council.
Overview
This issue paper, in collaboration with the Natural Resource Defense Council, takes a close look at clean energy employment generation using the Hero MotoCorp’s 80 MW rooftop PV project in Haryana. The project demonstrated the benefits of solar energy and created local jobs.
The high cost of electricity from coal, gas or diesel-based generation, coupled with attractive government rooftop solar programs, are motivating leading companies, such as Hero MotoCorp, to take advantage of their roofs to generate electricity for industrial and commercial applications. The process of developing this project was divided into four phases - Business Development, Design and Pre-construction, Construction and Commissioning, and Ongoing Maintenance. It provides key recommendations to strengthen the policies to accelerate rooftop solar installations.
Key Highlights
- The 80kW rooftop project at Hero’s motorcycle factory generated a total of 2.71 full-time equivalents (FTE) jobs.
- A rooftop PV system is quick to install, reduces system losses compared with grid-based distribution, and creates local jobs and local economic development.
- The construction phase generated a further 1.2 FTE.
- Higher skill level is required from workers constructing rooftop projects because of the expertise needed to install PV panels on rooftops as compared with ground-mounted projects.
- For the entire 25-year project life cycle, 0.019 FTE of activity is involved for a highly trained maintenance engineer every year.
- A number of additional job roles are created by solar PV grid-connected projects in secondary and tertiary roles, including manufacturing and supply of system equipment such as inverters, cables, trackers, and other parts.
Key Recommendations
- Strengthen national, state, and city policies to accelerate rooftop solar installation while also generating greater employment in India.
- Maintain openness and transparency in sharing employment data to showcase the employment potential of the sector. Examine industry needs and target skills most difficult to hire for in training programs.
- Seek employees in existing traditional fields to provide overlapping skills, in order to fill the gap quickly.
A total of 0.53 FTE of unskilled resources are required annually for cleaning activity over the 25 years that the plant is operational, making the life cycle total for highly skilled, skilled, and unskilled jobs 2.71 FTE.
