Agriculture required about 255 billion kWhr of electricity in 2024, accounting for roughly a fifth of India’s total power consumption. To meet this demand solely from solar power may be a lofty aspiration, but largely achievable if exclusive power lines are built for farmlands. This ‘agriculture feeder separation’ has been ongoing in the country for a decade now; all states, with the exception of Tamil Nadu, have done that.
Once feeder separation is done, the next step is ‘feeder solarisation’. In this, Maharashtra has shown the way, through various steps taken between 2022 and 2024.
Maharashtra has signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with about 60 developers for 16 GW of solar capacity — enough to meet about 90 per cent of the State’s agricultural power load — at tariffs fixed between ₹2.97 and ₹3.10 a kWhr for the next 25 years.
Shantanu Dixit, a founding member of the Pune-based not-for-profit energy think-tank Prayas Energy Group, who has worked with the Maharashtra government on feeder solarisation, believes that the bouquet of incentives the State offered developers helped clinch good deals.
First, the State government made available 50,000 acres, with legal clearances, for solar projects. Second, it offered early commission incentives, of 15-25 paise a kWhr for three years. And, to get the gram panchayats’ buy-in, it offered them ₹5 lakh a year each for three years, for use in local infrastructure development. Finally, a ₹700-crore revolving fund for payment security to avert delayed payments to developers.
The 16 GW solar capacity is expected to be in place next year. Farmers are assured daytime electricity supply, rather than waiting for unreliable night-time supply. The State government is happy to have locked-in power costs for the next quarter century. The entire agricultural load gets shifted to solar hours.
Feeder separation is the backbone of this system. Farmers can get power supply from the grid even on cloudy days; when demand from farms is low, the power goes to other consumers via the grid.
Other states, notably Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, are at various stages of agri feeder solarisation. Tamil Nadu seeks to provide 24-hour power supply to agriculture, not just during daytime.
‘Feeder-level solarisation’ falls under ‘Component C (FLS)’ of the PM KUSUM scheme, under which the central government gives subsidies. Under this scheme, 35.78 lakh agri pumps have been sanctioned, but only 4 lakh have been solarised so far. When Maharashtra’s 16 GW gets set up, this number will increase. Countrywide there are 2 crore agri pumps.
The other view
Not everybody backs the idea of a separate feeder for agriculture solarisation.
Puducherry-based Auroville Consulting believes it is a waste of money — “a duplication of the whole rural electricity distribution system”. Writing in the PV Magazine, Toine Van Megen and Martin Scherfler of Auroville Consulting point to high capital and operating costs, and idling of the feeder for several hours in the day, at night and during rains. “Solar PV systems can, and should, as much as possible, be connected to mixed-use rural feeders — agriculture and non-agriculture,” they argue.