After the United States, India has the second-highest arable land area, with nearly 60% of the land under cultivation. With nearly 300 sunny days a year in India, the amount of solar energy available in a year exceeds the combined power generation of all fossil fuel energy sources in the country.
One solution that could help India achieve solar and land optimization is agri-photovoltaics, according to reports. A pivotal study titled "Agri-PV in India" by the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) in conjunction with the India-Germany Energy Forum (IGEF) asserts that agri-PV can provide significant value to India's agricultural and renewable energy needs . The study hypothetically concluded that if 5.5 acres of land (which could support 1MW of agricultural PV) were used for the technology, a total potential of 629.69GW would be realised from net acreage (agricultural) land alone. For fallow areas and other uncultivated lands, the potential for agricultural PV is 49.50GW and 56.6GW, respectively.
According to its target of 500GW of non-fossil power installed capacity, India plans to generate nearly 50% of its cumulative installed power capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030, with renewables accounting for 50% of all energy needs.
According to India's KUSUM program, farmers and agricultural collectives can install photovoltaic power plants of 500KW~2MW on agricultural land. The photovoltaic power will be purchased by DISCOM at the feed-in tariff determined by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, providing a stable and continuous source of income for rural landowners. At the same time, a performance-based incentive of Rs 0.40/Kwh will be provided to DISCOM for a period of five years.
