Draft Paper For Solar Use In Agriculture

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers We will approach for a solution of attempting a solution to give the Marginalized farmers better access to groundwater irrigation: Sustainable approaches and options for India. We see this as a firm step to our father of the nation’s vision of independent and self sustainable villages. This is a vision contributing to “Gram Swaraj”. In the 1930s, public tube-well programs played the useful role of introducing these technologies when farmers resisted using it. Today, the situation is quite different. But public tube-well programs have failed to reinvent themselves and address the needs of the current market and society they serve. Small-scale, farmer-managed tube wells and decentralized pump irrigation markets have made public tube wells largely irrelevant. It is no surprise, then, that governments in most economically dynamic states, such as Gujarat, have begun turning over government tube wells to farmer groups in a hurry. Rural India’s poverty can be reduced by putting pumps in the hands of the small farmer. But the sheer numbers of people are such that a market push is needed to speed the process of transforming their region’s vast groundwater irrigation potential into wealth and welfare for its poor population. Central and State government pump subsidy and loan programs were created to speed the process. But they are mired in bureaucratic procedure and compromised by political brinkmanship and rent seeking. The end result is that these initially well-intentioned efforts have failed to produce an impact. The bright spot in this story is the successful programs of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and north Bihar. Here much of the practical organization of the pump subsidy and loan programs has been released from the stranglehold of the local bureaucracy. The private pump dealer plays a central coordinating role.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers Motivated by the prospect of profits from the growing pump market, private dealers have proliferated in towns of eastern UP. Intense competition has induced these businesses to deliver small farmers a range of rapid and useful services that were never previously offered. To get the farmers’ business, these pump dealers do the paper work and legwork, get the clearances and approvals needed. They organize bank loans, arrange the issuing of pipes, pumps and the drilling of boreholes— all in an unusually short time as compared with a centrally coordinated approach. The average delivery time for a working pump set under the government’s Free Boring Scheme in eastern UP is one-to-two weeks. In other States, dealers extract a heavy ‘service charge’ from farmers for providing these services. But the intense competition in the UP region has reduced dealer margins to 7–10% from 15–18% elsewhere.

The government’s role is to support this market-oriented approach by encouraging the creation of these types of public-private partnerships. The government’s key role is to set market rules that allow suppliers to deliver fast service and pump equipment adapted to local farmers’ needs. The central lesson is that energy solutions are to be given to a farmer with low resource settings and a drive has to be initiated involving technology firms to facilitate faster and cheaper dissemination of technology and subsidy. 1A “block” consists roughly of 150-250 villages; and it is a basic geographic unit between a village and a district. The groundwater administration classifies blocks fewer than three categories based on the extent of groundwater development. Blocks where groundwater draft is less than 65% of the available resources are categorized as “white;” those with 65%–85% development are classified as “gray;” and those with more than 85% development are classified as “dark.” While new groundwater development is strongly discouraged in dark areas it is encouraged in “white” areas.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers: A strategy for direct impact to improved irrigation capacity in India

The paper has reviews and analysis of factors that have influenced the success and failure of groundwater development schemes in India. Based on these observations, few points are recommended for policy action:


Discontinue government minor irrigation programs and focus on private tube wells as the primary mode for bringing groundwater irrigation to poor communities. Special Promotional Schemes for farmers and farmer groups trying to set up power generation with renewable energy solutions.
Improve electricity supply for agriculture by reintroducing combined solutions for different areas like Wind in hilly areas to wind and solar combination to solar and diesel pump sets in Northern India.
Promote the modification of pump sets to improve the energy efficiency of groundwater pumping, reduce pollution and lower the sale price of water to poor users. Wind in coastal and hilly regions with use of Solar in all India can bring lot of changes in the way pumping is done.
Introduce special Integrated Solar powered irrigation technologies for vegetable growers and marginal farmers. Horticulture may be one of the major area that can use even the area of land and better outputs.
Remove other Electricity subsidies and promote renewable energy as sole attraction of rural housing and facilities such as Panchayat Bhawans, Anganwadies, Schools, Sub-Health Centers Etc.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers 1. Special Promotional Schemes for farmers and farmer groups The critical challenge of overall agrarian growth— in India is to increase the pump density to 25–40 pumps/100 hectares of net sown area. This requires programs whose primary goal is to put the pump into the hands of the poor. But rather than attacking this problem directly, we continue to subsidize electricity in various political manifestoes and keep promising the electricity that doesn’t exist. One example is a study of government-managed lift irrigation schemes in Orissa. It reveals that these schemes irrigate an average of 18.2 acres and collect irrigation fees of Rs3,550. At a total cost of Rs200,000/hectare to build, the economics of this approach seems destined to be perpetually unviable. Need of the hour is to repackage the whole system and make it dependable on something whose management is in hand of user. The farmer who will produce his own electricity will regulate its judicious use and a common sharing of extra energy in villages will also bring new horizons to “GRAM SWARAJ”

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

2. Improve electricity supply for agriculture by reintroducing combined solutions The critical relationship between rural electricity supply and the development of India’s agricultural economy needs to be recognized. There are several determining factors. First, electricity is cheaper than diesel. Second, electric pump engines are cleaner. And third, as electrification has grounded routes in villages also, it makes good sense to promote electric power for the india’s agricultural development. High tariffs on electricity for agricultural use in eastern India have motivated millions of smallholder farmers, since the 1980s, to switch from electric pumps to the cheaper diesel-powered groundwater pumps. This is clear policy failure to address important need of production and primary producer. The new investments needed to improve and extend power supply in rural areas—and ultimately attract the diesel pump users to switch back to electricity—are unlikely to come about without exploring radically new ways of GENERATING power. Current research and thinking offer little insight into how this can best be achieved. A solution advocated by this paper is to offer VARIOUS combinations of Energy Such as wind, SOLAR and combination of PCM for diesel Gensets. The central issue then is the reduced metering and collection costs by drastically reducing the number of power supply points that the State Electricity Board directly monitors and bills. Several options exist: •

A more distant alternative is inviting Gram Panchayats (Village Councils) to undertake the distribution of power within the village and collect electricity dues by offering an attractive commission on the fees collected. This should not be difficult as the State Electricity Board’s (SEB) own transaction costs of metered power supply may be as high as 45–50% of overall operating costs including transmission and distribution losses. Efficient Panchayats can then transform electricity retailing into an incomegenerating proposition. SOLAR and WIND will be their contribution to the GRIDS or STAND alone plants for their usage.

•

Yet another alternative is to work with private power- distribution contractors—who will be charged based on consumption recorded in a central SEB meter and who can sell power to individual retail users. Local Level Small Contractors can be facilitated by SEB’s.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

3. Promote the modification of pump sets to improve the energy efficiency of groundwater pumping, reduce pollution and lower the sale price of water to poor users Some 30–35% of the energy actually used by irrigation pumping can be saved by modifying pump sets. Against the maximum achievable efficiency of 54% for electric pump sets and 20% for diesel pump sets, observed efficiencies are sometimes as low as 13% and 5%, respectively. There are two common reasons: the subsidized flat electricity tariff; and farmers’ lack of knowledge of how to select the right pump for the job, to operate and maintain it. S.M. Patel, an agricultural engineer based in Ahmedabad, has pioneered thousands of pump rectification experiments throughout India. His work shows that simply replacing a pump’s foot valve and suction pipe increases the water output of diesel pumps by 30%. But full-scale pump rectification—involving appropriately matched foot-valve, suction pipe, delivery pipe, pump and engine—can increase the discharge of a diesel pump by 85% and cut diesel consumption/hour by 17%. Some Netherlands-supported experiments in north Bengal registered significant gains in energy efficiency by removing the restrictor and attaching a ‘thermo-syphon’ cooling system, reducing the engine speed and removing the check valve (or foot-valve in case of dug wells). Tests showed that this type of rectification can cut diesel consumption by half Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers and improve discharge improved by more than 15%. What’s more, while the full rectification program recommended by S.M. Patel may cost nearly Rs8,000 for diesel pumps, the modifications piloted in the north Bengal project cost all of Rs350. Many agencies have promoted programs for pump rectification, with mixed results. One important reason for this is that farmers are unable to meet the exacting conditions of maintenance, repair and access to spare parts that are required to achieve high fuel efficiency. The reasons to persist with the pump rectification programs are compelling. Existing programs are driven primarily by the goal of energy efficiency, but pollution reduction is a relevant secondary benefit. Owners of SLOAR operated pumps are more competitive, as they can charge a lower price for water they sell to poor farmers, as pumps use less electricity per hour of operation. Looking at a potential real-life situation in a local water market, a group of owners of SLOAR operated pumps enjoys a powerful competitive advantage over owners of Traditional equipment. The former will provide water to local buyers at a doubly reduced cost-per-unit of water. This situation will generate market pressure to encourage the other diesel pump owners to move SLOAR to remain competitive.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

Introduce special Integrated Solar powered irrigation technologies for vegetable growers and marginal farmers

4.

Different types of water sources—canal and river water, deep wells, and shallow dug wells—require different types of pumps to irrigate most optimally. But the current Indian pump market does not provide the entire spectrum of pumps required for all farmers’ pumping needs. Shallow tube wells and dug wells in the Ganga basin cannot use all the power of a 5-horsepower (hp) engine because the suction head is very low and because, at full revolutions per minute, it uses only some 2–2.5 hp. The Indian pump industry has not effectively promoted anything smaller than a 5-hp diesel engine to drive an irrigation pump. Only two manufacturers—Greves Cotton and Sriram Honda offer a 1.98hp diesel/kerosene pump, which is popular in parts of the Chhotanagpur plateau. It is difficult to find pumps of this size elsewhere in the region. The key reason, it seems, is that the small pumps neither offer a significant price advantage compared to the 5-hp pumps nor are particularly fuel-efficient, as are some of the small Chinese pumps used in Bangladesh. If the barriers on the import of SLOAR POWERED pumps of less than 5-hp are lifted, or industry is promoted to produce it; small farmers—especially those on the Indian side of the Ganga basin—would probably have taken to them in large numbers, as have the Bangladeshi farmers.

5. Remove other Electricity subsidies and promote renewable energy as sole attraction of rural housing and facilities such as Panchayat Bhawans, Anganwadies, Schools, Sub-Health Centers Etc Research that lies behind this Briefing and a number of related studies suggest that removing the pump subsidy altogether is the best way to deliver pumps to poor communities faster. These studies show that pump prices in India would fall by 30-40% if pump subsidies are removed and free import of Chinese pumps is allowed. In Pakistan, which meets both these conditions, pumps are sold for 35-40% less than in India.

Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

Source of lighting No. State / UT 1

Solar Other Any No energy oil other lighting 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 107,209,054 83,127,739 522,561 184,424 305,308 614,849

1

India

2

Andaman & Nicobar Islands Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Assam Bihar Chandigarh Chhattisgarh Dadra & Nagar H Daman & Diu Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Prad J&K Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Lakshadweep Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Pondicherry Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal West Bengal

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Electricity

56,097

Kerosene

15,860

201

130

436

37,704 19,512 10,858 49,334 481 1,582 9,853 17,645 10,082 2,104 3,461 4,798 40,700 7,648 6,973 5,707 204 61 146 427 6,804 3,705 11,004 15,828 63 5 59 347 6 8 31 114 2,365 1,369 13,785 6,343 476 97 260 1,142 23,115 14,511 24,052 82,653 6,874 5,921 5,618 13,491 1,423 1,405 2,076 2,720 10,309 2,086 52,005 7,137 10,333 4,961 2,695 2,900 21,989 5,187 7,047 34,513 33,291 3,965 4,358 2,210 2 0 6 1 15,130 8,715 9,638 20,122 24,654 31,619 40,180 90,780 918 184 3,009 3,593 1,114 991 914 2,914 849 154 1,020 723 648 511 5,485 9,146 27,208 4,680 9,976 35,978 338 44 99 294 5,643 4,667 9,410 37,961 31,584 19,443 12,720 47,357 149 55 111 369 34,614 5,161 10,523 54,274 1,268 248 1,366 1,379 93,047 23,745 22,996 33,783 29,726 1,049 2,709 4,752 49,112 8,830 20,735 23,678 Source: Census of India 2001 Note: India figures exclude Mao Maram, Paomata and Purul sub-divisions of Senapati district of Manipur.

Dr Rajan Dubey

11,317,766 5,414,683 116,275 66,779 1,229,126 3,685,787 1,433,477 12,488,085 195,362 5,678 2,202,987 1,908,190 37,813 5,686 33,573 610 2,371,811 158,476 261,273 15,968 7,754,307 1,745,351 2,926,038 571,700 1,176,338 56,671 1,250,738 229,493 1,181,628 3,660,073 8,037,052 2,126,345 4,632,722 1,918,660 9,213 18 7,641,993 3,224,055 14,772,090 4,103,826 238,733 151,219 179,597 234,716 112,079 46,141 211,194 105,066 2,118,195 5,674,090 183,217 24,663 3,920,301 287,174 5,109,018 4,122,172 81,444 22,610 11,081,424 2,987,630 277,015 380,747 8,216,439 17,370,591 956,995 591,090 5,885,724 9,727,836

338

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

Dr Rajan Dubey