solar pumps: harnessing the sun for an evergreen revolution in bihar
Upload: ccafs-cgiar-program-climate-change-agriculture-and-food-security
Post on 15-Jun-2015
826 views
DESCRIPTION
Presentation by A Kishore, International Food Policy Research Institute, at the CCAFS Workshop on Institutions and Policies to Scale out Climate Smart Agriculture held between 2-5 December 2013, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.TRANSCRIPT
Solar Pumps: Harnessing the Sun for an Ever-green Revolution in
Bihar
2nd December, 2013
Avinash Kishore, PK Joshi and Divya Pandey
Avinash Kishore, PK Joshi and Divya Pandey
Frequent droughts have severely affected agriculture in Bihar in recent years
-50.00
-40.00
-30.00
-20.00
-10.00
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
180
230
280
330
380
430
480
530
580
630
680
2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
Value of Paddy (2004-05 prices)
% deviation from mean rainfall
Drought in 33 of 38 districts in 2013. Severe drought in 9 districts
Year (NSS Round) Head Count Ratio (HCR)
2004-05 (61st) 55.7%
2009-10 (66th) 55.3%
2011-12 (68th) 34.06%
2013-14*** ~45%***
If 2009-10 is a any guide, drought this year will push >15 million people below the poverty line in Bihar
Effective drought proofing is essential to poverty reduction in the state
“The Energy-squeeze” in Bihar’s Agriculture
Groundwater is the best bet against droughts (Dhawan, 1986)
But groundwater is economically scarce in Bihar
• >90% farmers depend on diesel pump-sets
• Price of diesel has nearly doubled in last eight years
• Farmers practice deficit irrigation in Rabi, wait for rains in Kharif and seldom grow summer crops
Affordable access to groundwater is essential for drought-proofing
Policy response
Easy subsidy on diesel pumps Bihar does not need more pumps; it needs cheaper
energy
Subsidy on diesel in drought years ~$0.15 billion in 2013 @ 40cents/liter
But Low awareness & poor off-take (IWMI, 2012)
High leakage & delayed in payments, other hassles
Water buyers are often left-out; same for tenants
Diesel subsidy is poorly targeted, ineffective
Could Solar pumps be a solution to “energy-squeeze”?
In spite of its high capital cost, life-cycle cost of a solar pump is lower than a diesel pump now
The Solar Powered Public Tubewells in Bihar
The solar pump experiment in Bihar
34 defunct PTWs revived in Nalanda district using solar panels in March-April 2012
Each tubewell draws power from six solar panels • Covers ~100 sq. meter of land
Runs a 7.5 hp submersible pump with a discharge capacity of 70m3/hr
Bihar government’s solar pump experiment (cont’d)
Pumps are installed in lands donated by farmers
WUAs formed to manage the PTW
• The land donor is often the de-facto manager of the PTW
Irrigation fee of Rs. 400/ha/watering
• The WUA (the land-owner) keeps 90% irrigation fee for repair and maintenance 10% is deposited with the department
Our Study
We picked 16 of the 34 command by a lottery
10 beneficiaries selected randomly for each PTW(total 160 farmers)
5 non-beneficiary farmers also selected on each PTW (total 80 farmers)
Farmers surveyed in Rabi 2012-13: 3 rounds of recall surveys
Kharif 2013: 1 round (around transplantation)
Sampling and data collection (cont’d)
In rabi season, data was collected for
3 solar plots of the solar farmers
1 non-solar plot of the solar farmers
1 non-solar plot of the non-solar farmers
In kharif season, data was collected for paddy cultivation for
Solar and non-solar plots of solar farmers
all plots of non-solar farmers
Monthly pump operation data collected from logbooks of the 16 operators in all 4 rounds of survey
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
FINDINGS
Operational setting of the solar pumps (cont’d)
Average design command area of solar pumps – 8.34 ha
Actual area served • 3.5 ha in rabi and
• 4 ha in kharif
Average # beneficiaries/SPTW = 16 (against potential 35)
Pumps not operated for 12 days/month
Few instances of technical glitches
Defective pipe network and lack of demand (specially in summer) are the main causes of under-utilization of SPTWs
Benefit from SPTW: Wheat
Variables of
interest
Solar plots of solar
farmers
Non-solar plot of
solar farmers
Non-solar plot of
non-solar farmers
Wheat yield
(kg/ha)
2973.663
2565.885
2624.638
Irrigation cost
for wheat
(Rs/ha)
821.4672 2946.771 3238.522
Net benefit from solar pumps to wheat growers = ~Rs. 7000/ha Gross benefit/SPTW in Rabi = Rs. 25,000
Variables Coefficient
if_solarplot 324.2***
(76.99)
land_owned -5.633
(35.25)
if_ownboring -56.05
(79.51)
if_ownapump 58.33
(93.60)
urea_quantity 0.657***
(0.233)
DAP_quantity 0.806***
(0.268)
potash_quantity 4.140***
(1.443)
laborhired_Rs 0.0397**
(0.0155)
Constant 2,511***
(360.4)
Observations 341
R-squared 0.355
Village and caste fixed effects Yes
Standard errors in parentheses
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
2013: one of the worst drought years in Bihar
Solar pumps are helping
Irrigation cost for nursery preparation & maintenance • Solar farmers – 186 Rs/ha
• Non-solar farmers – 451 Rs/ha
100% transplantation in command area by 31st August • yet to happen in 27% of non-command areas
Irrigation costs (up to 31st August) Solar plots – 671 Rs/ha
Non-solar – 3137 Rs/ha
SPTWs were severely underutilized in summer season
Variables of interest Solar farmers Non-solar farmers
Farmers who grew
summer crops
57 % of solar farmers
28 % of non-solar
farmers
Avg. Area under summer
crops (ha)/farmer
0.06
0.02
• Lack of complimentary inputs (labor, credit and experience) • Increase in area under summer crops is crucial for viability of
solar pumps
Our findings indicate that irrigation through solar pumps benefits farmers by -
Increasing yield
Lowering irrigation costs
Increasing cropping intensity
Mitigating impact of drought by enabling timely transplantation
encouraging area under water intensive crops like Rabi maize and vegetables that offer higher returns to land
But SPTWs are underutilized
High capital cost; near zero operational cost • High capacity utilization is essential to make solar pumps viable
Possible Remedies • Investment in water distribution network of PTWs
Command area and # beneficiaries will double
• Incentives for pump operators to increase capacity utilization
• Credit and extension support to farmers to encourage summer crops
Experiment with subsidized private solar pumps
Way forward
5556 old PTWs in Bihar • Mostly defunct due to poor power supply and expensive diesel
900 of them to be revived with a loan from NABARD
3000 new PTWS to be built
With proposed design, all of them will fail
Adding solar panels will cost $ 15,000 or ~$ 2000/ha of command area in capital cost
Additional benefit = $ 500-700/ha/year
» ($ 150 in rabi, $ 150 in kharif, $ 400 in summer)
Pay-back period of ~3-6 years + effective drought proofing