60% of irrigation pumps run on solar energy, says Corrit Energy and Infra CEO

At least 60 per cent of irrigation pumps in the country have been running on solar power over the past decade, even as more farmers are looking to earn more by making use of the PM KUSUM Yojana, according to Mayur Misra, Chief Executive Officer at Corrit Energy and Infra.

“There are only 88 lakh pumps run on diesel out of the 3 crore pumps used for irrigation as per government data. Almost everyone has moved to solar pumps now,” he told businessline in an online interaction..

Mayur Misra, Chief Executive Officer at Corrit Energy and Infra

Though it was difficult to convince farmers to shift to solar power, a lot of calculation has gone on the farmers’ side before the transition gathered pace. Today, the transition is double the rate of what was witnessed a decade ago, said Misra.

Executing projects in UP, Rajasthan

Gurugram-based Corrit, a renewable energy company enabling businesses and institutions to transition to solar through end-to-end EPC solutions, has its footprint in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It has also done projects in West Bengal, Karnataka and Gujarat.

The company has taken up projects in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan under the PM-KUSUM Yojana or the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthan Mahabhiyan, a flagship scheme launched by the Centre in March 2019 to promote solar energy in agriculture and provide reliable daytime irrigation and extra income for farmers.

“This scheme has been wonderfully designed because there are quite a good number of lands which are not good enough for cultivation. So their livelihood cannot be simply dependent on the harvest that comes out through that,” he said.

100 MW of projects

The PM-KUSUM scheme takes care of all the barren lands which are in proximity with the solar or the discom grids. Farmers can tender for setting up solar power plants and supply electricity to state governments. In turn, the government can pay them for the number of units that are supplied to the grid.

“There has been a sharp increase in the utilisation of the scheme, and slowly it will be running on a gigawatt scale in a single year,” said Misra.

Corrit is executing about 100 megawatts of projects cumulatively in Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. These should be completed within the next 12 months.

“We further want to take it up to 500 megawatts within the next 18 months,” he said.

Farmers’ ‘bankability’

The company, which was launched in 2015, initially had problems in convincing farmers to take up the PM-KUSUM scheme, especially in Rajasthan where it first took up the project.

But it faced the problem of farmers’ “bankability”. “Farmers did not have documented income like income tax or house or anything that he can go to the bank. “Even if it was a small project of 2 megawatts, the cost of the project would be somewhere around ₹8 crore. For banks to actually fund them in the name is a tough task,” said the company’s CEO.

This is where companies such as Corrit step in for partnerships with farmers. This results in companies’ capabilities being judged by the banks, which then approve the funding.

Under the PM-KUSUM Yojana, farmers also form partnerships or joint ventures for the execution of the project.

Scheme’s reliability

On why the company, which has a developing arm for PM-KUSUM projects, forayed into this, Misra said the primary reason was its reliability. “ Here, the buyer is the government. Governments are not going anywhere and payments are assured. The government is also subsidising. The third reason farmers are across India in all these states. This promotes the ease of business,” said Misra.

For Corrit, Uttar Pradesh has been relatively easier to work. This is because of the availability of land. “In the Bundelkhand area covering cities such as Jhansi, there are huge parcels of land available. These lands are not good for farming. Hence, transactions are easier for us,” said the company’s CEO.

The company, which began to expand to other areas from its Gurugram base, has done one of the largest rooftop projects for Volkswagen. “We did 5.4 megawatts of the 13-megawatt rooftop project. Currently, we are doing a 65 megawatt project for an iron and steel company in Punjab. We are focusing on Mandi, Govindgarh and Ludhiana regions in Punjab, where there are a lot of iron and steel plants,” said Misra.

Focus on other sectors

Corrit will also focus on the textile and automobile sectors. “We have received a letter of acceptance from one of the companies. We will be setting up captive solar power plants,” he said.

The company’s CEO said battery energy storage (BES) systems are a sector that will likely witness a lot of action soon. “There is a huge power shortage. We got exposed this year due to rainfall deficit. From solar to batteries and then the discharge to normal grids at nights. This will be the next big thing,” he said.

The Government has come out with a circular stipulating that 10 per cent of any plant connected to the grid will have to be mandatorily attached to BES. “Post-2030, BES will be a big thing,” said the company’s CEO, adding that it could be a trillion-dollar economy in itself.