India’s agrivoltaic capacity is expected to be more than 5-gigawatts in next 3-4 years: MNRE Secretary

India’s agrivoltaic capacity could scale to more than 5-gigawatts in the next three to four years subject to enthusiasm from states and their ability to notify feed-in tariffs, Santosh Kumar Sarangi, Secretary at the Union Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) told reporters at a briefing ahead of the seventh Agrivoltaics World Conference to be held in New Delhi October 21-23.  

“It is difficult to estimate but it should be upwards of 5-gigawatts in the next 3-4 years. It depends on state’s enthusiasm, ability to quickly notify a feed-in tariff,” said Mr. Sarangi.  

Agrivoltaics entails the use of agricultural land for its primary purpose and solar photovoltaic energy generation.  

“Once they (the states) are ready with feed-in tariffs. It would provide certainty to the farmer-producers organisations and cooperatives to make the investment decision. If states act quickly then 5-gigawatts plus should not be an issue,” he explained.   

Mr. Sarangi added that the ministry had observed enthusiasm from state governments as well.  

He also told reporters that several states, including Odisha, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have conducted their own individual pilot projects for agrivoltaics.  

Further, the Union New and Renewable Energy Ministry was also planning a scheme to support the states.   

“We are planning for a central sector scheme which will support it (agrivoltaics). Probably we will make it a part of one of our existing schemes as and when those schemes are getting revised,” he said, “On that we are working with the Finance Ministry on how this could be done and how states could be incentivised to do different kinds of agrivoltaic models.”