The International Solar Alliance (ISA) has selected India’s Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) to drive the installation of 500,000 solar water pumping systems in 13 of its 121 member nations.
The state-owned energy services company will be responsible for implementing the ISA’s first Scaling of Solar Application for Agricultural Use program, in countries that include India, Bangladesh, Sudan, Uganda, Senegal and Mauritius. The ISA program aims to promote decentralized solar applications for agricultural and rural use.
“We look forward to replicating the success of our ongoing solar projects and agricultural pumps program in the ISA member countries. We will leverage the wealth of our experience in implementing large-scale energy-efficiency and renewable energy programs in India, and combine that experience with ISA’s long-term vision,” Rajneesh Rana, General Manager of EESL, said.
Rebalancing agriculture’s power to earnings ratio
“Our aim is to help farmers in getting easy and affordable daytime access to irrigation. This is a major step towards decentralized power solutions that also help in reducing carbon emission.”
Consuming more than 22% of India’s power, agriculture contributes only 8% of the nation’s revenue. Some 30 million agricultural pumps are installed in India, of which almost 10 million are diesel based, with the remainder grid connected. EESL aims to provide reliable solar power to agricultural pump sets using mini-grids.
A joint venture of four public sector undertakings – the National Thermal Power Corporation, Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation and Powergrid – EESL was was set up under the Ministry of Power as a Super Energy Service Company. It is rolling out energy efficiency applications including smart meters, streetlights, solar agricultural feeders and lamps, agricultural pump sets and electric vehicles.
EESL has so far distributed 30 crore LED bulbs in India, leading to energy savings of more than 3,895 crore kWh, annually, which amounts to Rs15,581 crore in energy savings.
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