Beyond incentives: Multilevel institutional limits to residential rooftop solar adoption in Pune, India

Rapid urbanization in India has intensified the need for decentralized renewable energy solutions, particularly residential rooftop solar systems. Despite dense multilevel institutional support frameworks, adoption trajectories remain uneven across cities. This paper examines the recent deceleration in residential rooftop solar growth in Pune, India, a city widely regarded as a high-performing urban solar market, to address a central question: why does diffusion plateau in institutionally proactive urban contexts despite sustained policy support? Using qualitative cross-stakeholder analysis and embedding the case within a multilevel institutional framework, the study traces a shift from an early phase of incentive-led uptake among well-resourced homeowners to a later stage in which interagency coordination gaps, regulatory revisions, and procedural complexity became increasingly consequential. Although stakeholders frequently cited economic barriers such as upfront costs and payback periods, these constraints were closely linked to institutional design features, including subsidy disbursement processes and compliance requirements. The findings suggest that sustaining decentralized energy transitions beyond early adoption depends less on expanding financial incentives and more on stabilizing governance architecture and reducing administrative friction. By conceptualizing sluggish adoption as institutionally mediated outcomes, the article advances urban governance scholarship on multilevel coordination and the durability of sustainability transitions in rapidly urbanizing contexts.