Indian Initiative Supports Renewable Energy For Small Farmers

Smallholder farmers in rural India have gained significant support to switch from highly polluting diesel generators and pumps to renewable energy sources.

Social enterprise Oorja has stepped in to help farmers overcome the hurdle of investing in renewable solar energy water pumps to replace their existing diesel ones. 

Triple Pundit has reported some details about the approach.

“Oorja installs, operates and maintains solar water pumps, which are each shared by 15 to 20 smallholder farmers. The water pumped is metered and sold by volume through a service called Oonnati, achieving 20 percent cost savings compared to diesel-powered irrigation.”

Farmers are able to sign up without any upfront investment costs and ultimately save at least 20% on their energy bills in the process. 

What’s even better news is that productivity for these farmers has gone up by up to 15%, and some have achieved 30% more income.

Clementine Chambon and Preeti Kumari are the young founders of Oorja, and they have even gained recognition from Cisco’s Global Problem Solver Challenge, which gave them an additional funding boost of $100,000.