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 ₹43,000 to ₹54,000 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 carries no subsidy.
For most Delhi NCR homes the order is: on-grid solar first, because it pays for itself; keep the inverter battery you own for the cuts; a hybrid only if the cuts are long and frequent enough to justify it. The rest of this page explains why, and how to read a quote.
The three options side by side
| Inverter battery | On-grid solar | Hybrid solar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A battery charged from the grid, with an inverter that runs a few circuits when the grid fails | Panels and a grid-connected inverter; no battery; a net meter records import and export | Panels, a hybrid inverter and a battery; grid-connected, with the battery as backup |
| Cuts the bill | No | Yes | Yes |
| Backup in a power cut | Yes, for the circuits it is wired to | No | Yes, for the circuits it is wired to |
| Where the stored energy comes from | The grid, at your tariff | No storage; surplus goes to the grid as credit | The panels first, the grid if needed |
| PM Surya Ghar subsidy | None | Yes, on the solar capacity | Only on the solar capacity; nothing on the battery |
| Upfront cost | Lowest | Middle; roughly halved by the subsidy at 3 kW | Highest; the battery is the extra |
| Maintenance | Battery water and replacement every few years | Panel cleaning | Panel cleaning plus the battery |
| Suits | Any home that needs backup and cannot add panels | A home with a roof and a reliable grid | A home with long or frequent cuts, or loads that must not stop |
Verde Solaire's June 2025 explainer sets out the same three options; the table is a plain-language restatement of it, not a price list.
The three do different jobs. 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 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 and shuts itself down when the supply fails, so that no power flows out through cables a lineman may be working on. That is a safety rule in every on-grid inverter, not a fault; the panels stay in the sun and make nothing you can use until the grid returns.
That is also why savings need no battery: under net metering the grid does the storing, taking the day's surplus and giving it back at night. 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%.
What an inverter battery does, and does not do
The inverter battery in most Delhi NCR homes charges from the grid and runs the lights, fans and a few sockets when the supply fails. Every unit it returns was bought from the electricity board first, and some is lost in charging, so it adds a little to the bill rather than taking anything off it. It is a backup device, not a generator.
It does not have to go when solar arrives. The two work side by side: the solar inverter feeds the house and the meter by day; the inverter battery charges from the grid as before and takes over its circuits during a cut. For a home with a good roof and occasional cuts, this is the sensible end point: the subsidy on the solar, and 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 by day; the battery takes over at night or during a cut; the grid covers what both miss. 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 at ₹3.5 lakh to ₹4.5 lakh. Battery size and chemistry decide the real number; the written quote is the price.
The same explainer gives the company's own advice: in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Varanasi the supply is "mostly stable", so on-grid with net metering and the subsidy is recommended, and batteries should be added "only if frequent power cuts are a concern". A hybrid earns its cost when cuts run for hours several times a week, when a load must not stop, such as medical equipment or a home office, or when there is no grid at all. The off-grid and hybrid page covers the equipment.
Power cuts in Delhi NCR: count before you buy
Nobody knows how many cuts your street gets except your street, so before you pay for backup keep a note for one summer month: date, start time, duration. Evening cuts matter most, because that is when the air conditioners are on and the panels are not; in a daytime cut an on-grid system is off however bright the sun. Two short cuts a month: the inverter battery you have is enough. An hour most evenings: price the hybrid.
Backup is wired to a separate set of circuits, so the first decision is which appliances go on them; after that, sizing is arithmetic. A worked example, every number an assumption: lights, ceiling fans, the router and a fridge come to about 400 W, so four hours is 1.6 kWh. Lead-acid batteries are sized to use about half their capacity, so that load needs roughly 3 kWh of nominal storage, about two 150 Ah batteries in a 24 V bank. A 1.5 kW air conditioner would empty that in a little over an hour. Lithium discharges deeper and can be smaller for the same job, at a higher price per kWh. An engineer confirms this from your appliances on the survey, 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. Delhi adds ₹26,000 per kW capped at ₹78,000 (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 ₹1,56,000 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 there because the scheme is built around net metering: the nine steps run through the board's feasibility approval, the net meter and the commissioning certificate. 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 net meter, gets no subsidy at all, as Verde Solaire's own May and June 2025 posts state. And a hybrid quote must say in writing which part of the price the subsidy covers, and that the board's net-metering approval covers the hybrid inverter model named in it. The panel rules do not change with 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", 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, panels on the roof and house dark, with the advance long paid.
The cure is a line in the quote, asked for before you sign: Backup during a power cut: yes or no. If yes, the battery make, model and capacity in kWh, the circuits it carries 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 wired circuits and nothing more. The inverter page shows how to tell the two apart from the model name. Verde Solaire's quotes name the make and model of every component, which makes the line checkable; the before you pay the advance checklist has a line for it.
Which one for your home
Three cases cover almost everyone. Bill high, cuts short and rare: on-grid solar, the inverter battery you have, and net metering doing the storing; the 3 kW price page has the figures. Cuts long or nightly: price a hybrid, with the battery sized to the circuits you name, and treat the extra cost as the price of backup, not as part of the solar investment. No grid at all: 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 toolQuestions people ask
Start with a clear plan for your savings
Get a free roof assessment and a written quote for branded equipment. We will also explain the loan, installation, net-metering and subsidy steps.