If talks between solar companies, agricultural water pumps producers and electricity distribution companies come to fruition, India could see the advent of the ‘solar farmer’.
In the last one year, there has been a lot of activity in ‘solarisation’ of agriculture — to enable farmers to buy solar-powered irrigation pumps through various schemes. In July, the first Budget of the current Government in New Delhi allocated Rs 400 crore to be given to States in support of their ‘solar pump’ programmes. The States would provide subsidies to enable people to afford solar pumps, in a bid to reduce supply of free electricity to them.
Several States have come forward with their own solar pump programmes – Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, to name three of them. The prices are fixed through a bidding process, and typically a certain number of pumps is allocated to each district. Farmers in the district apply and if there are more interested farmers than the number of pumps allocated, the buyers are chosen by a draw of lots. The lucky farmers pay 30 per cent of the cost of the pump, the rest is paid to the pump supplier by the State Government. (A 3 hp pump would cost about Rs 4 lakh.)
And now, there are moves to take this issue a little forward. Why not have the farmers ‘oversize’ the pumps and enable them to supply the extra electricity generated by the solar panels to the grid?
Pashupathy Gopalan, Head – Asia-Pacific, SunEdison, a large US-based solar major that is active in India, says talks are on between the manufacturers and authorities to make such a proposition happen. SunEdison is a major player in the solar pump market and, incidentally, has recently entered into a pact with Anna University of Chennai to research how solar pumps-driven irrigation practices could help farmers. Part of the research is the study of the possibility of change in crops to enable the farmer get more from his land.
The ‘crop plus solar’ farmer would get additional revenue from the supply of electricity for, say, 25 years. Injecting power into the grid at the village-level would also strengthen the grid, improving voltage, says Pashupathy.
Quoting an estimate that there are 30 million irrigation pumps in the country, Pashupathy reckons that if all of them are replaced with solar pumps, there could be additional electricity generation of about 25,000 MW, part of which could be put into the grid.