Ornate Solar, a distributor of solar panels and inverters, has announced the commissioning of India’s largest building-integrated rooftop solar system in Bhagru, Rajasthan. The project was executed for Canada-based natural stone manufacturing company Pangaea Natural Stone.

The InRoof system developed by Ornate was tested for 18 months before commercial deployment. The company claims that it is also the industry’s first structural solution that can integrate panels of any shape and size to replace conventional metal roofs.

The 530 kW innovative rooftop system at Pangaea will offset 18,346 tons of CO2 emissions.

The Canada-based company has demonstrated the use of the InRoof system by integrating solar panels as the roof over their 35,000 sq. ft production facility. The company has saved 124,968 kg of CO2 that would have been emitted during the production of the steel roof.

The roof has been installed using 1,175 mono PERC solar panels manufactured by Canadian Solar. The panels generate electricity and act as an integrated system. Enphase Energy has provided the solar inverters used for the project.

The innovative InRoof solar system consists of roll-formed continuous sections made from a steel alloy that is resistant to corrosion and oxidation. The structure also provides a 100% guarantee against water leakage.

This latest structure can accommodate 26% more solar panels than the traditional rooftop solar systems and has shown to generate over 4-8% more energy due to free air circulation, which lowers module backsheet temperatures by up to 15 degrees Celsius.

The structure is a good option for solar parking lots, canopies, or facades.

Ornate has developed the product at its facility in New Delhi. It is also developing a plug-and-play version of the InRoof system for residential households, the commercial version of which will be released by December 2022.

India added 456 MW of rooftop solar capacity in Q1 of the calendar year (CY) 2022, a 34% year-over-year growth compared to 341 MW registered in the same period last year. In a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) comparison, installations were up by 13%, compared to the 402 MW installed in Q4 2021.

Innovations like the building-integrated rooftop solar system will help increase the pace of installations and provide consumers with better alternatives.