Site Survey

Every project begins with a free on-site survey, and it exists to answer one question honestly: what can actually be built here, and what will it do?

A quotation produced without a survey is produced from assumptions — a roof area guessed from a satellite image, a shading estimate from nothing, a system size backed into from a budget. Those quotations are cheap to produce, which is why they are common, and they are the reason projects change price after the order is placed.

What gets measured, and why each one can change the answer

Available roof area, orientation and tilt. Modules need clear, unobstructed area with usable orientation. Water tanks, stair headrooms, parapets, existing solar water heaters and the walkways needed for maintenance all subtract from a roof's paper area. What we record is the area a panel can actually occupy, not the roof's dimensions.

Shading, across the day and across the year. This is the measurement most often skipped, and the one that most often invalidates a projection. A chimney, a water tank, a neighbour's under-construction third floor or a tree that is fine in December will each take output at particular hours. Shade on a single module can pull down a whole string depending on how the array is wired, so shading changes the layout, not just the yield estimate.

Structural condition and loading. The mounting structure must be designed for the wind zone of your location, at a minimum factor of safety of 1.5, for a 25-year design life. That calculation needs the real roof: RCC slab, trapezoidal or AC sheet over trusses, the condition of the surface, and where load can be transferred. Minimum ground clearance under the standard package is 600 mm at the lowest point; an elevated structure requires 8 feet of clearance to remain eligible for subsidy — which is a design decision with a cost, best made before a proposal, not after.

The electrical position. Main panel condition and spare way, earthing, cable route and run length from array to inverter to panel, inverter siting with adequate ventilation, and metering arrangement.

Your sanctioned load or contract demand. This is a hard regulatory ceiling: under MPERC's RG-39(II) of 2024 your system must not exceed your sanctioned load (or contract demand on a demand-based tariff). It is frequently the binding constraint rather than roof area. For rooftop systems up to 10 kW the DISCOM must carry out the matching load enhancement simultaneously with the net-metering approval — so where enhancement is needed and the system is within that band, it is not a separate battle.

Distribution-transformer headroom. Cumulative rooftop capacity on the transformer feeding you is capped at 80% of its rating, allocated first-come-first-served, with available capacity published annually by the DISCOM. If your transformer is near its ceiling, that is something to learn now.

Arrears. A consumer with pending arrears is not entitled to net metering until they are cleared. It is a five-second check that occasionally saves a project.

What we read off your bill

Bring or photograph a recent electricity bill — ideally twelve months of them.

Madhya Pradesh's domestic tariff is telescopic, so a system's value depends not on how many units you use but on which units it removes. Solar peels from the top of the slab ladder downward, where the rate is highest. A household consuming 350 units a month pays a much higher rate for its last hundred units than its first fifty, and the correct system size follows from that structure rather than from a rule of thumb.

Twelve months matters because a single bill hides the seasonal swing that decides sizing — the summer cooling peak, and the monsoon months when generation is lowest.

What we do not do on a survey

We do not quote a price before we have seen the roof. We do not project a bill of zero — fixed charges remain payable on a solar connection, a position MPERC considered and expressly confirmed in the FY 2026-27 tariff order on the ground that the network is still there and still being relied on. And we do not offer central subsidy on a commercial or industrial connection, because the scheme does not.

What you receive afterwards

A written proposal within two working days, containing:

• The system size the site supports, with the constraint that set it — roof area, sanctioned load, transformer headroom or shading — named explicitly.
• A generation estimate with the assumptions stated, so you can check them.
• The subsidy you are eligible for, computed on the scheme's actual slabs: ₹30,000 per kWp for the first 2 kWp, ₹18,000 for the third, ceiling ₹78,000 at 3 kWp for a residential connection, and nothing at all on a commercial one.
• A bill projection showing the residual, not a zero.
• The equipment specification, against which the delivered material can be checked — modules carry an RFID tag laminated inside the glass recording cell and module manufacturer, manufacturing date and country of origin separately, plus a visible serial number and wattage.
• The timeline, phase by phase, with the externally paced phases marked as such.

How long the project takes after that

A rooftop project runs through six phases. Setup and paperwork, procurement, installation and testing, then post-installation inspection, commissioning and metering, and finally handover. The first three are ours to pace; the two after them are paced by your DISCOM, and the subsidy transfer follows commissioning.

The regulation does bound the external phases. For rooftop PV, technical feasibility must be decided in 15 days or the application is deemed accepted; systems up to 10 kW are deemed accepted without any feasibility study; the Letter of Approval issues within 30 days; and after the installation certificate is submitted the DISCOM has 15 days to sign the agreement, fit the meter and commission. Delay without just cause carries ₹500 per day payable to you.

The survey itself takes roughly 45 to 60 minutes and costs nothing, whether or not you proceed.