Govind Rasave (25) was a contract farmer in Maharashtra’s Manmath village, until he joined an agrivoltaics site, where solar power production is integrated with crop cultivation, in Parbhani.

Before he joined here as a farm manager in 2022, Rasave, as well as many farmers in his village, were apprehensive about solar installations in the region. They were particularly concerned about losing farming land to ground-mounted solar installations, with little room between or below the panels for cultivation. Conventional utility-scale solar projects are usually fenced off, says Rasave, and don’t allow any agricultural activity within their premises. “This loss of land to a solar power plant became a sore point for many farmers and agricultural workers who started viewing solar projects with skepticism,” he adds. This apprehension about solar installations, reflects the conflict between food security and energy access in India. Both the crucial sectors – agriculture and solar energy generation – require significant land area. A study, for example, predicts that India will require around 311 million tonnes of food grains by 2030 and 350 million tonnes by 2050 – all of which will require extensive land for farming. Meanwhile, the amount of solar and onshore wind power needed for India to achieve its target of net zero by 2050 would require between 55,500 and 77,000 km² of land.

Rasave’s perspective changed when he came across the 1.4 MW agrivoltaics project in Parbhani, about three kilometres from his village, where crops are harvested while solar panels generate energy. The agrivoltaics, also known as agrophotovoltaics (APV), project in Parbhani has been operational for one and a half years. “It is here that I first saw that farming can coexist with solar power harvesting,” says Rasave. As the farm manager, Rasavi handles all aspects of farming, from pre-harvest to post-harvest, at the site, with assistance from researchers. Around ten agricultural workers are hired seasonally to assist with farming.

Need to factor in crop yield

While APV has dual benefits of energy and food production, it is yet to achieve scale in India. The first APV project was established in Gujarat in 2012, and the country is still experimenting with pilot projects. By July 2023, there were at least 22 operational APV projects in different parts of the country, according to a report published by the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI), an advocacy body.

Globally, agrivoltaic installed capacity is estimated to have grown from about 5 MW in 2012 to approximately 2.9 GW in 2021, according to a report published by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). Countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China have reported significant progress in agrivoltaics.

The agrovoltaics practice in India needs to evolve, as reflected in a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) which underscores that while other countries have updated their standards for agrivoltaics (APV), India still adheres to a broad definition of “simultaneous use of land for agriculture and solar PV power generation.” In the more contemporary definition of APV, in countries such as Germany, France, and Japan, agriculture yield is emphasised, indicates the report. Experts suggest that designing APV systems while ensuring good crop yields on land where the solar panels are installed, is one of the important ways to increase the acceptability of APV projects in India.

Another report prepared by the Indo-German Technical Cooperation on Innovative Solar (IN Solar) in India, under the guidance of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), emphasised the need for careful planning and design to ensure that crops and solar panels do not interfere with each other’s growth and productivity. Published in January, it specifically recommended clarifying the percentage of land that should remain available for farming after solar installation and the expected crop yield compared to the original field. For instance, Japan’s APV policy states that agricultural yield loss should be less than 20%, and countries such as Italy have restricted the maximum land area permitted for solar PV power generation.

Spacing and elevation for efficiency

To promote agrivoltaics/agrophotovoltaics (APV) in India, the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) and Indo-German Energy Forum recommend in a report that at least 80% of the total surface area be guaranteed for agricultural use. Other recommendations include suitable classification and legal certainty of land, as well as financial support for farmers.

The report also details three types of existing APV in India: ground-mounted panels, which allow for interspace farming; slightly elevated panels, which enable crops to be grown partially under the panels and between them, increasing land use efficiency; and fully elevated panels, which permit farming and cultivation with small machinery across the entire site. This arrangement can create a new microclimate, depending on the number of panels and additional irrigation, allowing farmers to grow new or higher-value crops and diversify their income. The Parbhani model, where Rasave works, is an example of the third type.

APV Parbhani, developed as part of a larger 50 MW solar project, is a collaboration between SunSeed APV, Kanoda Energy, and GIZ German Development Cooperation. In terms of layout, the site has been experimenting with three different models. The largest section (1.5 acres) has a fully elevated structure with panels mounted at a height of 3.75 metres. The distance between two solar PV rows here is 5.65 metres.

Another agrivoltaics facility at the Krishi Vikas Kendra (KVK) in Ujwa, has also adopted similar measures. Solar panels in the Ujwa facility are mounted at a height of 3.5 metres and the space between solar PV rows is 7.5 metres.

This layout is quite different from the first agrivoltaics project set up in Gujarat’s Sardoi village in 2012. The site installed conventional ground-mounted panels and adopted interspace farming, an essential feature of an APV site where crops are grown in the space between PV rows.

Researchers have pointed out that conventional APV designs have certain limitations. “There are many operational APV pilots with different layouts and innovations across the country but achieving farm efficiency is not easy,” says Rakesh Kumar, subject matter specialist (horticulture) at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) Ujwa. He has been monitoring the 110kW agrivoltaics unit in Ujwa. For instance, ground-mounted panels offer very little room under the panels, which means that only a limited variety of crops (moong, urad, leafy vegetables and medicinal plants) can be grown in the under-panel area. For example, crops like tomatoes, brinjal and okra can’t be grown in such cases. Moreover, ground-mounted panels are also not suited for operating farm machinery like tractors and other vehicles, making farming challenging.

At the initial stage of the project, when the layout was being discussed for Ujwa, Kumar says, there were plans to keep a distance of 4.5 metres between PV rows, but researchers at the KVK branch insisted on increasing this space to 7.5 metres. “The greater the distance between PV rows, the better the yield since there is a larger area covered by sunlight. It also makes operating machinery like tractors at the site easier as there is more room both under and between the panels,” he says.

To make sure that the power generation capacity is not compromised, researchers also proposed setting up three PV rows instead of two. “This was done to make sure that the APV model we adopted was viable for both farmers and solar power developers,” he adds.

According to field experts associated with several APV projects, the need for an elevated structure with greater distance between PV rows evolved out of a desire to make APV sites more farm efficient.

Agrivoltaics potential

Charles Worringham, an observer of India’s energy transition who also authored the 2021 IEEFA report on the scope of agrivoltaics in India, shares his thoughts on what the growth of agrovoltaics means for India. Scalability can serve as a benchmark to gauge the success of agrivoltaics in India, but it fails to acknowledge the groundwork that is currently being done to promote sound projects, equipment and techniques, and supportive financing and regulatory arrangements, he says, in an email response to Mongabay India.

“Legislation and regulations, for instance, should incentivise cooperative projects that may span a number of smaller plots, either through existing farmer producer organisations (FPOs) or brand-new alliances, for example, by bringing together farms that share good access to key grid infrastructure in a given region,” says Worringham who insists that marginal farmers stand to benefit the most from agrivoltaics, provided sound principles are implemented.

Vivek Saraf, founder and CEO of SunSeed Pvt. Ltd, a start-up working on agrivoltaics in India, concurs with this view and says, “Marginal farmers who own, say, two acres of land and earn Rs. one lakh per year, can lease their land to a project developer and collect Rs. 50,000 per year as rent. Additionally, they can earn up to Rs. 1.5 lakh per year from farm-related work and post-harvest proceeds,” says Saraf. SunSeed is involved with two operational APV projects in Maharashtra (Parbhani and Nashik). The Rs. 2-lakh-per-year earnings model, wherein a single farmer is earning from rent and farm work, and proceeds, remains unrealised so far.

The six-month-old APV site in Nashik can be said to be a step in the right direction in this regard. Set up on a one-acre plot in the research farms owned by Sahyadri Farms, a Farmers Producers Organisation (FPO), the 250 kW agrivoltaics site has an elevated structure at a height of four metres, a pitch (distance between PV rows) of six metres, and uses bifacial panels that can produce electrical energy when illuminated on either of their surfaces, front or rear.

Sahyadri Farms has 10,000 member farmers in Nashik who collectively own about 25,000 acres of farmland. “There were growing concerns among our shareholders (who are all farmers) about livelihood. Climate change and volatile markets have made farming more challenging over the years. Therefore, as part of our ongoing research focusing on ways to secure farmers’ livelihood, the idea of an APV project was floated,” shares Mangesh Kishan Bhaskar, head of the agronomic department at Sahyadri Farms and closely associated with APV Nashik.

But there is also a flipside to setting such high standards for agricultural output, says Worringham. These may dim the interest of solar power developers in agrivoltaics as they stand to lose their license if they fail to meet targets. But there are ways to tackle this, he adds. France, for example, has provisions that allow local governments to relax requirements when projects are able to demonstrate farm efficiency, for example, “by way of reduced damage from excessive heat or stress from dry soil.” He adds that similar debates and revisions to legal frameworks are ongoing in Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and the USA (Ohio and Oregon).

Worringham also warns about “sham agrivoltaics” or projects that claim to be APV but show little intention of maintaining significant agricultural production.

However, despite these caveats, Worringham remains optimistic about the prospects of agrivoltaics in India. “Electricity demand growth, the needs of the farming sector, and the capacity of agrivoltaics to relieve pressure on land align more strongly in India than almost anywhere else,” he says. It is, therefore, crucial that India adopts a cautious approach and charts its own path of growth in the agrivoltaics sector, ensuring it can balance the twin goals of food security and energy security.

Banner image: Visitors examine green capsicum at the fully elevated Section 1 of the agrivoltaics plant near Parbhani. Image courtesy of NSEFI & GIZ.

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Kundan Pandey Editor

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