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

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530

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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