ENERGY CONSERVATION IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR

The agricultural sector is amongst the major energy consuming sectors after the industrial sector. The two main energy sources used in the agriculture sector are electricity and oil for cultivation, irrigation, harvesting and processing agro-products.
The agricultural sector alone accounts for about 40% share of the total electricity consumption in the state. There about 5 to 6 lakhs electric pumps and an equal numbers of diesel engines operated pumps, on their wells, bore-wells, tube-wells, etc., for water lifting. About 24 lakhs ha of land in the State is irrigated by the underground water resource using over 11 lakhs pump sets. It is estimated that about 500 crores kWh of electricity and about 5 lakh kL of diesel is annually consumed by these pumping systems. The cost of such energy works out to be Rs. 22500 millions per year.
Numerous field studies have revealed that about 90% of these pump sets used in farms are inefficient and wasting crores of rupees worth of power and oil. The poor efficiencies are on account of fault installation, sub-standard goods and poor maintenance and there is a scope of improving the efficiency of these pumping systems to the extent of 30 to 50% by taking corrective measures.
Rectification work has been implemented on over 1.5 to 2 lakh pump sets in the State - both electric as well as diesel pumps, by organization like GEDA, GEB, PCRA, REC and ICM during the last two decades. Energy saving in the range of 15 to 50% has been achieved by rectification of agricultural pump sets in the field.
Major energy losses in pumping systems occur due to wrong selection of pumps, faulty installation and use of inefficient piping system. The pump rectification work comprises of corrective measures for faulty installation, replacement of inefficient piping with new rigid low friction piping and low head foot valves. The cost of rectification, which Rs. 2000 - 3000 per pump is paid back within 6-8 months from the saving of electricity or diesel that is achieved due to the rectification.
The power tariff for agriculture is very liberal and on an average the cost per unit of electricity used for agriculture is about Rs.0.5 against Rs. 6 per unit for the industrial sector. Hence it is obligation of the government to encourage and motivate farmers to adopt energy saving measures. Various promotional scheme have been implemented in the country with the assistance of the Ministry of Power and Ministry of Petroleum, GOI, for educating the farmers about the subject and extending financial assistance for replacing inefficient pump with efficient ones.