Solar Pumping in India

Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam UtthaanvMahabhiyan (KUSUM) Scheme

Being an agrarian economy, India supports nearly 50% of its
population through agricultural activities. The major hindrance in the
agricultural sector is erratic power supply and too much reliance on polluting diesel-powered pumps. Approximately, around 30 million agricultural pumps are installed in India. Of these, 10 million pumps are runs on diesel fuel and the rest 20 million agricultural pumps in the country are operated through grid supply.
The agricultural sector consumes around 20% of total India’s installed power. Thus, fluctuating diesel prices, unreliable power supply, dependency on unpredictable monsoon rains, comprise an additional burden on farmers.
India is blessed with good annual solar resources of 4–7 kWh/m2 and available resources can be utilized for cheap solar power and solar pump applications.

In 2014, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government
of India, along with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) had launched a scheme to install 10,000 solar PV water pumps in the country by 2016. As of now, around 1.96 lakhs solar pumps have been installed. To accelerate the number of installations, the Government of India has launched the ambitious Kisan Urja Suraksha evam
Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM) scheme to implement solar power in the country.

Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM) Scheme

There have been always challenges in rural areas in providing uninterrupted power and water supply for multiple agricultural activities. To promote decentralized solar power plants and cleaner solar pumps for farmers, the Government of India launched a new scheme known as ‘Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM)’.

The objective of this scheme is to provide farmers an opportunity to provide support for installing solar pumps and cover story grid connected solar plants. The scheme has been divided into three categories:

Component-A: 10,000 MW of Decentralized Ground Mounted Grid
Connected Renewable Power Plants

Component-B: Installation of 17.50 lakh standalone Solar Powered
Agriculture Pumps

Component-C: Solarization of 10 Lakh Grid-connected Solar Powered
Agriculture Pumps

The scheme would add renewable capacity of 25.750 GW by 2022 with allocated total central financial support of 34,422 crore.

Source- MNRE