Rooftop solar or an inverter battery?

An inverter battery gives you backup during a power cut and saves nothing on the bill. On-grid rooftop solar cuts the bill, and with the subsidy a 3 kW system nets to ₹91,000 to ₹1,02,000 in Delhi and ₹91,000 to ₹1,02,000 in Noida, but it gives no backup: when the grid goes, it switches off. A hybrid system does both, at a higher cost, and the battery part of it carries no subsidy.

For most homes in Delhi NCR the order is therefore: install on-grid solar, because it pays for itself; keep the inverter battery you already own for the cuts; and buy a hybrid only if the cuts are long and frequent enough to justify the extra spend. The rest of this page explains why each of those statements is true, and how to read a quote so that you get the system you were promised.

The three options side by side

The three are not rivals for the same job. An inverter battery is insurance against the dark. On-grid solar is an investment that returns money every month. A hybrid is the investment with the insurance bolted on. The mistake buyers make is to expect the investment to include the insurance for free.

Why on-grid solar switches off in a power cut

A grid-connected inverter watches the grid all day. When the supply fails, the inverter shuts itself down, so that no power flows out through the cables a lineman may be working on. This is a safety rule built into every on-grid inverter, not a fault. The panels are still in the sun, and still make nothing you can use, until the grid comes back.

That is also why no battery is needed for savings. Under net metering the grid does the storing for you. In the daytime the system runs the house and exports the surplus; at night you import. In Delhi, credits roll over month to month, and any surplus left at the end of the financial year is paid at the DISCOM's average power purchase cost. In Uttar Pradesh, under the UPERC rooftop solar regulations of 2019, residential users may choose net or gross metering, and the DISCOM allows capacity within transformer limits. A 3 kW system makes about 326 units a month in Delhi, and Verde Solaire's published claim is that homeowners typically reduce their power bills by 60–90%. None of that requires the system to work during a cut.

What an inverter battery does, and does not do

The inverter battery in most Delhi NCR homes charges from the grid while the supply is on and runs the lights, fans and a few sockets when it is off. Every unit it returns was bought from the electricity board first, and some of it is lost in charging, so the battery adds a little to the bill rather than taking anything off it. It is a backup device. It does not generate.

It does not have to go when solar arrives. An on-grid system and an existing inverter battery work side by side: the solar inverter feeds the house and the meter during the day; the inverter battery charges from the grid as it always did and takes over its circuits during a cut. For a home with a good roof and occasional cuts, this combination is the sensible end point. It gets the subsidy on the solar and keeps the backup you have already paid for.

Hybrid: what you pay for, and when it is worth it

A hybrid system replaces the on-grid inverter with a hybrid inverter and adds a battery. The panels run the house and charge the battery in the day; the battery takes over at night or during a cut; the grid is there when both fall short. Verde Solaire's June 2025 explainer put the hybrid or battery add-on for a 3 kW system at ₹1 lakh to ₹1.5 lakh on top of the on-grid price of ₹1,99,000 to ₹2,10,000, and a 5 kW off-grid system with batteries, which has no grid connection at all, at ₹3.5 lakh to ₹4.5 lakh. ^{[vs-post-137]} Those are indicative figures from a dated post; the battery size and chemistry decide the real number, and your written quote is the price.

The same explainer gives the company's own advice for its cities: in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Varanasi the supply is "mostly stable", so on-grid with net metering and the subsidy is the recommended option, and batteries should be added "only if frequent power cuts are a concern". ^{[vs-post-137]} A hybrid earns its cost in three situations: cuts that run for hours rather than minutes and come several times a week; a load that must not stop, such as medical equipment or a home office that cannot lose a working day; or a plot with no grid at all, where the choice is off-grid or nothing. The off-grid and hybrid page covers the equipment.

Power cuts in Delhi NCR: count before you buy

Nobody can tell you how many cuts your street gets except your street. Before you pay for backup, keep a note for one summer month: the date, the time it started, and how long it lasted. Evening cuts matter most, because that is when the air conditioners are on and the panels are not. A daytime cut is the awkward case: an on-grid system is off during it, however bright the sun. If the note shows two short cuts a month, an existing inverter battery is enough. If it shows an hour most evenings, price the hybrid.

Sizing the backup is arithmetic once you know what must stay on. Backup is wired to a separate set of circuits, so the first decision is which appliances go on it. A worked example, with every number an assumption you should replace with your own: lights, ceiling fans, the Wi-Fi router and a fridge come to about 400 W. Four hours of that is 1.6 kWh, the same unit your bill calls a unit. Lead-acid batteries are normally sized so that you use only about half their capacity, so that load needs roughly 3 kWh of nominal storage, which is what two 150 Ah batteries in a 24 V bank hold, give or take. A 1.5 kW air conditioner on the same bank would use the usable half in a little over an hour. Lithium batteries can be discharged deeper and can be smaller for the same job, at a higher price per kWh. An engineer confirms all of this from your actual appliances on the survey visit, and Verde Solaire offers a free site evaluation and no-obligation proposal.

What the subsidy covers

The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana pays fixed amounts by solar capacity: ₹30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW and ₹18,000 for the third, capped at ₹78,000. The formula behind it is 60% of the benchmark cost for the first 2 kW and 40% for the part between 2 and 3 kW, capped at 3 kW. Delhi adds ₹10,000 per kW capped at ₹30,000 (3 kW); Uttar Pradesh adds ₹15,000 per kW capped at ₹30,000 per consumer, on top of the central subsidy. On a 3 kW system that is ₹1,08,000 in Delhi and ₹1,08,000 in Noida, Ghaziabad or Varanasi.

Eligibility is an Indian citizen who owns a house with a suitable roof, has a valid electricity connection and has not taken an earlier solar subsidy. The valid electricity connection is on that list because the scheme is built around net metering: the application runs through the electricity board's feasibility approval, the net meter and the commissioning certificate, in the nine steps. Three consequences follow. The subsidy is worked out on the kilowatts of panels, so a battery adds nothing to it. An off-grid system, with no grid connection and no net meter, gets no subsidy at all, as Verde Solaire's own May and June 2025 posts state. ^{[vs-post-137]} And a hybrid quote must say in writing which part of the price the subsidy application covers, and confirm that the electricity board's net-metering approval covers the hybrid inverter model named in it. The panel rules are the same whatever the inverter: both the modules and the cells must be made in India, and ALMM List-II applies to net-metering systems commissioned from 1 June 2026.

"We were told we would have backup": how a quote should say it

The mis-selling happens in one sentence. A salesperson says "solar" and the buyer hears "backup", and nothing in a standard on-grid quote says otherwise, because backup is not a line item. The homeowner finds out at the first evening cut, with the panels on the roof and the house dark, and by then the advance has been paid.

The cure is a line in the quote, and you are entitled to ask for it before you sign: Backup during a power cut: yes or no. If yes, the battery make, model and capacity in kWh, the circuits it will carry, and the hours it is designed for. If no, that word, on paper. Then read the bill of materials. An on-grid string inverter and no battery means no backup, whatever was said on the phone; a hybrid inverter and a battery means backup for the circuits it is wired to and nothing more. The inverter page explains how to tell the two types apart from the model name. Verde Solaire's quotes name the make and model of every component, which is what makes the yes-or-no line checkable, and the before you pay the advance checklist has a line for it.

Which one for your home

Three cases cover almost everyone. If your bill is high and the cuts are short and rare, install on-grid solar, keep the inverter battery you have, and let net metering do the storing; the 3 kW price page has the figures. If the cuts are long or nightly and you want the house to keep running without thinking about it, price a hybrid, with the battery sized to the circuits you name, and treat the extra cost as what you pay for the backup rather than as part of the solar investment. If there is no grid, the question answers itself: off-grid, and no subsidy.

Electricity bill calculatorSee what your monthly units cost on the Delhi or Uttar Pradesh tariff, and what a 3 kW or 5 kW system takes off it.Open the tool

Assumptions and limits

The hybrid, off-grid and on-grid prices are Verde Solaire's own published figures from May and June 2025, indicative only; the subsidy figures are as published by PIB, MNRE and the BSES Rajdhani FAQ of September 2025. The battery sizing example uses assumed loads and a lead-acid depth-of-discharge rule of thumb, both of which an engineer replaces with measured values on the survey. No published source gives a reliable count of power cuts by locality in Delhi NCR, which is why this page asks you to keep your own.

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