Environmental Benefits of using Solar Photovoltaic Power based Micro-irrigation System in Vegetable Cultivation: A Case Study

Author: M.K. Ghosal*, N. Sahoo and Jyoti Ranjan Rath

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Abstract

One aspect of achieving sustainability in any human related activity is to look into the environment-friendliness against the emission of the greenhouse gases. The present study focusses and reveals the environmental benefits of using solar photovoltaic power for water pumping in the irrigation sector for the warm and humid climatic conditions. The environmental benefits of a small capacity (1 hp) directly coupled DC solar PV water pump have been studied for growing vegetables in an area of 1 acre with the integration of drip system. The system would be capable of replacing the current use of electric and diesel pump sets with the mitigation of emitting CO2 in the irrigation sector. It is estimated that total annual CO2 emissions can be mitigated in the tune of 70 × 107 kg by replacing the existing electric (2.00 lakhs) and diesel (3.00 lakhs) pump sets in the state of Odisha, India. Pay-back period of the developed set up was estimated to be only 1 year causing its easy acceptance am

Keywords

Solar photovoltaic water pumping system, Micro-irrigation, Drip irrigation, Vegetable cultivation, Greenhouse gases.