Off-grid solar means batteries carry your entire load with no grid connection at all. It is a legitimate technology for the right situation, and for almost every home in Delhi NCR that already has an electricity connection, it is the wrong choice. Here is the honest arithmetic.
The disqualifying fact first. Off-grid systems are explicitly excluded from the PM Surya Ghar subsidy. Grid connection with net metering is a condition of the scheme. So choosing off-grid means forfeiting Rs 78,000 in central subsidy, plus any state top-up, before you have compared anything else.
Then the cost structure. A grid-tied 3 kW system runs roughly Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 2.2 lakh, less Rs 78,000 subsidy. An off-grid system of the same generating capacity needs a battery bank large enough to carry your household through nights and cloudy days, which adds substantially. A 5 to 10 kWh battery alone is Rs 70,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh, and a genuinely off-grid home typically needs more than that. You are looking at roughly double the net cost for the same generation, with no subsidy.
And the batteries do not last twenty-five years. Panels do. Lithium packs commonly last eight to twelve years, so an off-grid system carries a large replacement cost partway through its life that a grid-tied system simply does not have.
Meanwhile, what does the grid actually do for you? With net metering, surplus you generate is exported and credited against what you import. The grid is functioning as an enormous, free, maintenance-free battery. You pay nothing for its capacity, nothing for its replacement, and it never degrades. Deliberately giving that up in a city with grid access is an expensive preference.
When off-grid genuinely makes sense. A farmhouse or plot with no connection, where the alternative is paying for a line extension. A remote site where connection cost exceeds the battery cost. Situations where grid supply is so unreliable that it is functionally absent rather than merely irregular. If you are in one of those situations, off-grid is not a mistake; it is the correct engineering answer.
What people usually actually want when they ask about off-grid. In our experience the underlying wish is nearly always backup during power cuts, not independence from the grid. Those are different problems with different solutions. A hybrid system, grid-tied with a battery, keeps critical loads running through outages while retaining net metering and the subsidy on the solar portion. It costs more than plain grid-tied because the battery is unsubsidised, but far less than going fully off-grid.
The sales angle to watch for. Off-grid and battery-heavy systems carry higher margins. If a salesperson is steering you towards off-grid without asking about your grid reliability, or is suggesting the subsidy still applies, treat that as a reason to get another quote.
Our recommendation, stated plainly. If you have a grid connection in Delhi NCR, install grid-tied and take the subsidy. If power cuts genuinely disrupt your household, specify a hybrid inverter and add a battery sized to your critical loads only. Reserve off-grid for sites that genuinely have no other option.
We say this running a directory that lists battery suppliers. A directory that only ever says yes would not be worth reading.
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Last updated 27 July 2026 · Reviewed by the RenSetu team