The white paper ‘From Rooftops to Farmtops: Augmenting India’s Distributed Solar Goals through net-metered solar pumps’ jointly prepared by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)-TATA Water Policy Programme and Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute (GERMI) states that if solar pumps are to replace traditional water pumps in farms across the country, India could surpass its solar target of 100 GW by 2022.
The analysis was released at a roundtable conference hosted by Greenpeace India, GERMI, and IWMI-Tata Program to discuss steps necessary for the successful implementation of KUSUM (Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthan Mahaabhiyan) – a Central government scheme promoting solar irrigation pumps.
Currently, while the 60 GW target assigned for large-scale solar power is on track, the 40 GW target for rooftop solar power is still to gather momentum, with only 2.4 GW of total rooftop capacity installed as of March 2018.