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IISD paper ‘Agrivoltaics in India challenges and opportunities for scale-up’ pushing for clean energy in agriculture
Under the two of the three components of solarising the farm energy, the achievement is 2.17 per cent and 1 per cent only even after nearly four years of launching of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Uthan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) scheme.
The Canada based independent think tank International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and Consumer Unity and Trust Society International (CUTS) has prepared a paper ‘Agrivoltaics in India challenges and opportunities for scale-up’ with support by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Agrivoltaic is a concept of harvesting maximum synergy between photovoltaic energy and agriculture by installing solar panels on agricultural lands by simultaneous use of land for both agriculture and photovoltaic (PV) power generation.
This paper tells how to deploy small-scale decentralized solar power plants under PM-KUSUM scheme. It provides practical guidance to states on how they can begin to pilot agrivoltaics in their first phases of deployment under PM-KUSUM, which explicitly states that it can be used to support agrivoltaics.
The paper states that Agrivoltaics did not negatively impact crop yields while in some cases crop yields even increased according to implementers. Arid, semi-arid, and peri-urban areas are likely to be good locations for agrivoltaics in India while Agrivoltaics in arid regions has shown an increase in the yield of the agricultural production and improvement in the soil properties. State governments need to reform land-use and tax regulations to support agrivoltaics and must develop consistent standards and definitions.
It states that technological innovations and testing business models will be key for commercialization of agrivoltaics. To commercialize agrivoltaics, states should consider alternative tariff-setting approaches. Capacity building will be critical to scale up agrivoltaics and to support crop management. Innovation and peer learning will be critical to overcome operational challenges.
The central government and state government offers subsidy of 30 per cent each and farmer had to pay remaining 40 per cent for installing solar pumps.