Date:14/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/14/stories/2008091454380500.htm

National

Project to save energy in agriculture sector

Special Correspondent

Five states selected as sites for project

JAIPUR: After its recent initiative to save energy for domestic consumers by replacing electricity bulbs with the compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), the Union Government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has come up with the idea of saving energy in the agriculture sector.

The BEE has selected Rajasthan among five states for launching a pilot project for power saving in the agriculture sector with the help of State power utilities. Other states short-listed for the project are Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

An official release stated here on Saturday that the BEE had decided to prepare detailed project reports of the five short-listed demand side management (DSM) projects. The Pricewaterhouse Coopers, appointed as consultant by the BEE, will prepare the detailed project reports. The release pointed out that power utilities in the five selected states had segregated agriculture feeders with about 1,000 agricultural pumps being used for irrigation.

Saving expected

The new energy efficiency programme expects to save 3,645 units of electricity by a pumpset of 10 hp annually. The release said the power utilities were providing electricity to the agriculture sector on nominal prices.

In Rajasthan, the DSM project will be taken up in Chomu division under the Jaipur district circle of Jaipur Discom, where the number of agricultural power connections are sufficient to fulfil the BEE’s norms.

The release quoted Jaipur Discom Chairman and Managing Director R.G. Gupta as saying that a total of 1,261 pumps getting electricity from nine feeders in Chomu division had been selected for the pilot project. Replacing these pumps with energy efficient pumps will save about 40 lakh units of electricity every year.

The BEE will create an appropriate network, after preparing the detailed project reports, for market-based interventions in the agricultural pumping sector to provide energy efficient pumps to farmers on nominal prices.