draft paper for solar use in agriculture

8/14/2019 Draft Paper for Solar Use in Agriculture

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Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers

Dr Rajan Dubey

We will approach for a solution of attempting a solution togive the Marginalized farmers better access to groundwater irrigation:Sustainable approaches and options for India. We see this as a firm stepto our father of the nation’s vision of independent and self sustainablevillages. This is a vision contributing to “Gram Swaraj ”.

In the 1930s, public tube-well programs played the usefulrole of introducing these technologies when farmers resisted using it. Today, the situation is quite different. But public tube-well programshave failed to reinvent themselves and address the needs of the currentmarket and society they serve. Small-scale, farmer-managed tube wellsand decentralized pump irrigation markets have made public tube wellslargely irrelevant. It is no surprise, then, that governments in mosteconomically dynamic states, such as Gujarat, have begun turning overgovernment tube wells to farmer groups in a hurry.

Rural India’s poverty can be reduced by putting pumps inthe hands of the small farmer. But the sheer numbers of people are suchthat a market push is needed to speed the process of transforming theirregion’s vast groundwater irrigation potential into wealth and welfare forits poor population. Central and State government pump subsidy andloan programs were created to speed the process. But they are mired inbureaucratic procedure and compromised by political brinkmanship andrent seeking. The end result is that these initially well-intentioned effortshave 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 practicalorganization of the pump subsidy and loan programs has been releasedfrom the stranglehold of the local bureaucracy. The private pump dealerplays a central coordinating role.




Dr Rajan Dubey

Motivated by the prospect of profits from the growing pumpmarket, private dealers have proliferated in towns of eastern UP. Intensecompetition has induced these businesses to deliver small farmers arange of rapid and useful services that were never previously offered.

To get the farmers’ business, these pump dealers do the paper work andlegwork, get the clearances and approvals needed. They organize bankloans, arrange the issuing of pipes, pumps and the drilling of boreholes— all in an unusually short time as compared with a centrally coordinatedapproach. The average delivery time for a working pump set under thegovernment’s Free Boring Scheme in eastern UP is one-to-two weeks. Inother States, dealers extract a heavy ‘service charge’ from farmers forproviding these services. But the intense competition in the UP regionhas 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 todeliver fast service and pump equipment adapted to local farmers’ needs.

The central lesson is that energy solutions are to be given to a farmerwith low resource settings and a drive has to be initiated involvingtechnology 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 groundwateradministration classifies blocks fewer than three categories based on theextent of groundwater development. Blocks where groundwater draft isless than 65% of the available resources are categorized as “white;” thosewith 65%–85% development are classified as “gray;” and those with morethan 85% development are classified as “dark.” While new groundwaterdevelopment is strongly discouraged in dark areas it is encouraged in“white” areas.




Dr Rajan Dubey

Bringing Solar Powered Irrigation pumps to Farmers: A strategy for directimpact 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 technologiesfor 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

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 subsidizeelectricity in various political manifestoes and keep promising theelectricity that doesn’t exist.

One example is a study of government-managed lift irrigation schemes inOrissa. It reveals that these schemes irrigate an average of 18.2 acresand collect irrigation fees of Rs3,550. At a total cost of Rs200,000/hectare to build, the economics of this approach seemsdestined 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. Thefarmer who will produce his own electricity will regulate its judicious useand a common sharing of extra energy in villages will also bring newhorizons to “GRAM SWARAJ ”




Dr Rajan Dubey

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 thandiesel. Second, electric pump engines are cleaner. And third, aselectrification has grounded routes in villages also, it makes good senseto promote electric power for the india’s agricultural development.

High tariffs on electricity for agricultural use in eastern India havemotivated millions of smallholder farmers, since the 1980s, to switchfrom electric pumps to the cheaper diesel-powered groundwater pumps. This is clear policy failure to address important need of production andprimary producer.

The new investments needed to improve and extend power supply inrural areas—and ultimately attract the diesel pump users to switch backto electricity—are unlikely to come about without exploring radically newways of GENERATING power. Current research and thinking offer littleinsight into how this can best be achieved. A solution advocated by thispaper is to offer VARIOUS combinations of Energy Such as wind, SOLARand 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 (VillageCouncils) to undertake the distribution of power within the villageand collect electricity dues by offering an attractive commission onthe fees collected. This should not be difficult as the StateElectricity Board’s (SEB) own transaction costs of metered powersupply may be as high as 45–50% of overall operating costsincluding transmission and distribution losses. EfficientPanchayats can then transform electricity retailing into an income-generating 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- distributioncontractors—who will be charged based on consumption recordedin a central SEB meter and who can sell power to individual retailusers. Local Level Small Contractors can be facilitated by SEB’s.




Dr Rajan Dubey

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 besaved 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; andfarmers’ lack of knowledge of how to select the right pump for the job, tooperate and maintain it.

S.M. Patel, an agricultural engineer based in Ahmedabad, has pioneeredthousands of pump rectification experiments throughout India. His workshows that simply replacing a pump’s foot valve and suction pipeincreases the water output of diesel pumps by 30%. But full-scale pumprectification—involving appropriately matched foot-valve, suction pipe,

delivery pipe, pump and engine—can increase the discharge of a dieselpump by 85% and cut diesel consumption/hour by 17%.

Some Netherlands-supported experiments in north Bengal registeredsignificant gains in energy efficiency by removing the restrictor andattaching a ‘thermo-syphon’ cooling system, reducing the engine speedand removing the check valve (or foot-valve in case of dug wells). Testsshowed that this type of rectification can cut diesel consumption by half




Dr Rajan Dubey

and improve discharge improved by more than 15%. What’s more, whilethe full rectification program recommended by S.M. Patel may cost nearly Rs8,000 for diesel pumps, the modifications piloted in the north Bengalproject cost all of Rs350.

Many agencies have promoted programs for pump rectification, withmixed results. One important reason for this is that farmers are unableto meet the exacting conditions of maintenance, repair and access tospare parts that are required to achieve high fuel efficiency.

The reasons to persist with the pump rectification programs arecompelling. 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 cancharge a lower price for water they sell to poor farmers, as pumps useless electricity per hour of operation.

Looking at a potential real-life situation in a local water market, a groupof owners of SLOAR operated pumps enjoys a powerful competitiveadvantage over owners of Traditional equipment. The former will providewater to local buyers at a doubly reduced cost-per-unit of water. Thissituation will generate market pressure to encourage the other dieselpump owners to move SLOAR to remain competitive.




Dr Rajan Dubey

4. Introduce special Integrated Solar powered irrigationtechnologies for vegetable growers and marginal farmers

Different types of water sources—canal and river water, deep wells, andshallow dug wells—require different types of pumps to irrigate most

optimally. But the current Indian pump market does not provide theentire spectrum of pumps required for all farmers’ pumping needs.

Shallow tube wells and dug wells in the Ganga basin cannot use all thepower of a 5-horsepower (hp) engine because the suction head is very lowand because, at full revolutions per minute, it uses only some 2–2.5 hp. The Indian pump industry has not effectively promoted anything smallerthan a 5-hp diesel engine to drive an irrigation pump.

Only two manufacturers—Greves Cotton and Sriram Honda offer a 1.98-hp diesel/kerosene pump, which is popular in parts of the Chhotanagpurplateau. 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 asignificant price advantage compared to the 5-hp pumps nor areparticularly fuel-efficient, as are some of the small Chinese pumps usedin 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 assole 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 thebest way to deliver pumps to poor communities faster. These studiesshow that pump prices in India would fall by 30-40% if pump subsidiesare removed and free import of Chinese pumps is allowed. In Pakistan,which meets both these conditions, pumps are sold for 35-40% less thanin India.




Dr Rajan Dubey

Source of lighting

No. State / UT Electricity Kerosene Solarenergy

Otheroil

Anyother

Nolighting

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 India 107,209,054 83,127,739 522,561 184,424 305,308 614,849

2 Andaman &Nicobar Islands

56,097 15,860 338 201 130 436

3 Andhra Pradesh 11,317,766 5,414,683 37,704 19,512 10,858 49,334

4 Arunachal 116,275 66,779 481 1,582 9,853 17,645

5 Assam 1,229,126 3,685,787 10,082 2,104 3,461 4,798

6 Bihar 1,433,477 12,488,085 40,700 7,648 6,973 5,707

7 Chandigarh 195,362 5,678 204 61 146 427

8 Chhattisgarh 2,202,987 1,908,190 6,804 3,705 11,004 15,828

9 Dadra & Nagar H 37,813 5,686 63 5 59 347

10 Daman & Diu 33,573 610 6 8 31 114

11 Delhi 2,371,811 158,476 2,365 1,369 13,785 6,343

12 Goa 261,273 15,968 476 97 260 1,142

13 Gujarat 7,754,307 1,745,351 23,115 14,511 24,052 82,653

14 Haryana 2,926,038 571,700 6,874 5,921 5,618 13,491

15 Himachal Prad 1,176,338 56,671 1,423 1,405 2,076 2,720

16 J & K 1,250,738 229,493 10,309 2,086 52,005 7,137

17 Jharkhand 1,181,628 3,660,073 10,333 4,961 2,695 2,900

18 Karnataka 8,037,052 2,126,345 21,989 5,187 7,047 34,513

19 Kerala 4,632,722 1,918,660 33,291 3,965 4,358 2,210

20 Lakshadweep 9,213 18 2 0 6 1

21 Madhya Pradesh 7,641,993 3,224,055 15,130 8,715 9,638 20,122

22 Maharashtra 14,772,090 4,103,826 24,654 31,619 40,180 90,780

23 Manipur 238,733 151,219 918 184 3,009 3,593

24 Meghalaya 179,597 234,716 1,114 991 914 2,914

25 Mizoram 112,079 46,141 849 154 1,020 723

26 Nagaland 211,194 105,066 648 511 5,485 9,146

27 Orissa 2,118,195 5,674,090 27,208 4,680 9,976 35,978

28 Pondicherry 183,217 24,663 338 44 99 294

29 Punjab 3,920,301 287,174 5,643 4,667 9,410 37,961

30 Rajasthan 5,109,018 4,122,172 31,584 19,443 12,720 47,357

31 Sikkim 81,444 22,610 149 55 111 369

32 Tamil Nadu 11,081,424 2,987,630 34,614 5,161 10,523 54,274

33 Tripura 277,015 380,747 1,268 248 1,366 1,379

34 Uttar Pradesh 8,216,439 17,370,591 93,047 23,745 22,996 33,783

35 Uttaranchal 956,995 591,090 29,726 1,049 2,709 4,752

36 West Bengal 5,885,724 9,727,836 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 Senapatidistrict of Manipur.




Dr Rajan Dubey

draft paper for solar use in agriculture

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