Govt working on central scheme on agrivoltaics

The central government will come up with a scheme to incentivise states to adopt agrivoltaics, solar panels installed on top of existing farms, to push the country’s installed solar capacity further, but is yet to finalise whether this will be a standalone scheme, or part of the new PM Kusum 2.0 scheme which is likely to come out soon, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said on Monday in a press briefing. This comes ahead of the 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference being hosted by India in the national Capital from October 21-23.

“To nudge all the states and to provide them with some kind of an initial incentive, we are planning for a central sector scheme, which will support this. Whether it is PM Kusum 2.0 or a standalone scheme, we are still working on finding out a mechanism through which we can provide support,” said Sarangi, while detailing that the Agrivoltaics conference is expected to attract over 1,500 participants from India and 24 countries abroad, including experts, researchers, farmers and delegates.

Agrivoltaics involved installation of solar panels at a height, directly above existing farmland, allowing farmers to continue farming while reaping benefits of solar generation at the same time. HT had reported on August 3 how over 40 such pilots are currently ongoing across the country.

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The conference will be held at Bharat Mandapam and is also expected to see the launch of an agriphotovoltaics policy document and a regulatory compendium, Sarangi said. It is being hosted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, with support from the Indo-German Cooperation on AgriVoltaics project.

“Initial feedback from pilots already being conducted with the assistance of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) shows leafy vegetables, fruits and floriculture is more suitable for installation of such panels, while it is not so feasible for sugarcane, wheat and rice. We are still looking at crop metrics,” Sarangi said.

The government said installing solar panels above existing farms makes them around 25% more expensive than conventional ground-mounted solar panels.

“Thus, the scheme aims to cover this cost and the aim is that it eventually becomes commercially viable and competitive,” he said, adding initial assessments for India show a potential to install 1-2 Terawatts (TW) across the country.

Currently, coverage of ground-mounted solar panels is part of the PM Kusum scheme, which provides subsidies to farmers for both ground-mounted panels and solar pumps.

The conference on Wednesday will be inaugurated by both Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Prahlad Joshi and Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan, officials said.