Solar batteries: when you need one
If your home is on the grid, you almost certainly do not need a solar battery. An on-grid rooftop system sends its daytime surplus to the grid through the net meter and takes it back at night as credit on the bill, so the grid does the storing at no charge. A battery earns its place in two cases only: power cuts long or frequent enough that you want the solar to carry the house through them, which is a hybrid system, or a site with no grid connection, which is off-grid. In both cases the battery is paid for in full by you: the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana pays by solar capacity, and a battery adds nothing to it.
That is the short answer. The rest of this page explains how a battery fits a rooftop system, which chemistry suits which job, how to size one around the loads that must not stop, and how a quote should state it.
What a solar battery does in a rooftop system
A solar battery stores electricity the panels make and are not using, and gives it back when they make too little: at night, on a heavily overcast day, or during a power cut. Verde Solaire's own product page puts it the same way, and adds the argument most battery sellers lead with: without storage, the surplus goes to the grid and other people use it.
In Delhi and Uttar Pradesh that argument has an answer. Under net metering the surplus is not lost; it is credited. 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 unit sent out at noon and taken back at nine in the evening costs you nothing but the meter reading, whereas a unit stored in a battery costs the battery's price divided by the number of units it will ever hold. For a home with a grid connection, the meter wins on cost every time. The net-metering guide covers the rules by board.
What the meter cannot do is keep the lights on when the grid fails. An on-grid inverter shuts down the moment the supply drops, by design, so that nothing flows back into a line a lineman may be repairing. If that matters to you, a battery is the only fix, and the rest of this page is about doing it properly.
Do you need one: three cases
On-grid, the usual case. A house with a grid connection, a roof and cuts that are short and rare. No battery; on-grid solar and net metering. Verde Solaire's June 2025 explainer says the supply in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Varanasi is "mostly stable", recommends on-grid with net metering and the subsidy, and advises adding batteries "only if frequent power cuts are a concern". If you already own an inverter battery, keep it: it charges from the grid as before and runs its circuits during a cut, alongside the solar. The rooftop solar or inverter battery page sets the two side by side.
Hybrid, for cuts. A house on the grid where cuts run for hours, arrive most evenings, or fall on loads that cannot stop: a home office, a lift, medical equipment, a shop's refrigeration. A hybrid inverter replaces the on-grid one, a battery hangs off it, the net meter stays, and the grid still covers what the panels and battery miss. This is the case the rest of the page assumes.
Off-grid, only without a grid. A farmhouse, a site beyond the last pole, a plot where the connection is years away. Panels, a charge controller or off-grid inverter, and a battery bank sized to carry the whole load through the night and through cloudy days. Everything the grid would have done, the battery does, so it is the largest and most expensive part. Verde Solaire's explainer is plain that this route carries no subsidy under PM Surya Ghar. The off-grid and hybrid page covers the equipment for both of the last two cases.
Lithium or lead-acid
Two chemistries are sold for homes in India, and the trade-offs below are general: the make and model in your quote, and its datasheet, are what count.
Lead-acid, usually tubular, is the chemistry of the inverter battery already in most Delhi NCR homes. It is the cheaper to buy per kWh of rated capacity. Against that: it is sized to use only about half of that capacity, so a 150 Ah battery gives you roughly half of what the label suggests; the flooded type needs distilled water topping up and a ventilated place to stand, because it gives off gas on charge; it is heavy and takes floor space; and it wears out in hundreds of full cycles rather than thousands, faster still in a 45-degree summer. It suits backup that is used a few times a month and stays mostly idle.
Lithium, almost always lithium iron phosphate (LFP) for homes, costs more up front. Against that: it can use most of its rated capacity, so a smaller bank does the same job; it needs no topping up; it is lighter and can be wall-mounted; a built-in battery management system watches every cell; and it is rated for thousands of cycles. It suits a battery that is cycled every day, which is what a hybrid system with solar does. It also needs a hybrid inverter that speaks its communication protocol, which is one more reason to buy the inverter and the battery as one design rather than adding one to the other later. The inverter page explains what a hybrid inverter is and how to recognise one in a bill of materials.
Heat is the enemy of both. A battery on a bare roof or in a tin shed loses life fast; a shaded, ventilated place indoors or in a covered stairwell is worth planning for before the survey. Verde Solaire is an authorised solar solutions partner of Luminous, a brand that makes both inverters and batteries for Indian homes, and its quotes name the make and model of every component.
Sizing for the loads that must not stop
A battery is sized to the circuits it will carry and the hours it must carry them, not to the size of the solar system. The arithmetic is short, and every figure below is an assumption to be replaced by your own appliances on the survey.
Start with the list. A refrigerator averages about 150 W over an evening, two ceiling fans about 150 W, four LED lights about 40 W, a router and a television together about 120 W. Call the essential circuit 500 W. Six hours of that is 3 kWh of stored energy. Divide by the usable share of the battery: lead-acid at about half gives roughly 6 kWh of rated capacity, which is four 150 Ah batteries in a 48 V bank; lithium at about 90% gives roughly 3.5 kWh, a single wall-mounted module on most brands.
Now add one air conditioner. A 1.5-ton inverter air conditioner draws around 1 to 1.5 kW once the room is cool, so four evening hours is 4 to 6 kWh on its own, more than the whole essential circuit. This is why "backup" in a quote must name the appliances: backup for the lights and fans and backup for the bedroom air conditioner are different batteries at different prices.
Two more checks. The panels have to recharge the battery the next morning on top of running the house, so a hybrid that is cycled daily wants solar capacity to match; Verde Solaire's explainer suggests larger homes and villas looking at full solar use plan for 8 kW or more with a battery. And the hybrid inverter must be rated for the loads that start together: a fridge compressor and an air conditioner switching on in the same second draw several times their running power. An engineer confirms both on the survey, which Verde Solaire offers as a free site evaluation and no-obligation proposal.
What the subsidy covers, and why the battery is outside it
The central subsidy 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, which works out to ₹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. Every one of those figures is a function of kilowatts of panels. There is no line for storage, so a battery neither raises the subsidy nor disqualifies the system; it is simply outside the arithmetic. The subsidy guide has the full rules.
Two consequences follow. An off-grid system has no grid connection and no net meter, and eligibility requires an Indian citizen who owns a house with a suitable roof, has a valid electricity connection and has not taken an earlier solar subsidy, so it gets no subsidy, as Verde Solaire's own explainer states. A hybrid system that keeps its grid connection and net meter can claim the subsidy on its solar capacity; the panel rules are unchanged, so 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. Ask the installer to confirm in writing that the hybrid inverter model named in the quote is accepted by your electricity board for net metering, because that approval, not the subsidy portal, is where a hybrid can stall.
What it costs, and how the quote should say it
Verde Solaire's June 2025 explainer is the company's only published battery figure: 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. Those are indicative and a year old; capacity, chemistry and brand move the number a long way, and the written quote after a survey is the price. The on-grid figures by size are on the 3 kW price page.
Whatever the number, ask for the battery as its own line, with five things on it: make and model; rated capacity in kWh and the usable share; the circuits it carries and the hours it is designed for; the warranty in years and in cycles, and what counts as end of life; and which part of the total the subsidy applies to. A quote that lists an on-grid string inverter and no battery is a quote with no backup, whatever was said on the phone. The before you pay the advance checklist has a line for exactly this.
Assumptions and limits
The appliance wattages, the usable share of each chemistry and the cycle-life ranges above are general planning figures, not specifications; the datasheet of the model in your quote replaces them. Prices are Verde Solaire's own published figures from June 2025, indicative only. Subsidy figures are as published by PIB and MNRE in February 2024 and the BSES Rajdhani FAQ of September 2025, checked on 18 September 2026. No published source counts power cuts by locality in Delhi NCR; keep your own note for a summer month before you pay for backup.
Questions 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.