Agrivoltaics: The Land Question Behind India's Solar Target

The seventh AgriVoltaics World Conference met at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi this month under the theme "Powering the Global South", the first time the conference has been held in the Global South. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy hosted it, with support from Germany's environment ministry, and the government used the occasion to announce that a major agrivoltaics programme will be introduced in the next phase of PM-KUSUM.

The number that travelled from the conference is the potential: 3,000 gigawatts at the low end and nearly 14,000 at the high end, with Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh identified as the high-potential states. The lower end of that range is several times India's entire installed generating capacity. A number that large should be read as a question rather than an answer.

What agrivoltaics is and is not

Agrivoltaics is the dual use of the same land for agriculture and solar photovoltaic generation. The panels are raised, spaced and sometimes tilted differently from a conventional plant so that crops can be grown underneath or between rows. The electricity can be used on the farm, sold to the grid, or fed into a pump.

It is not the same as putting panels on barren land, and it is not the same as a solar park with grass under the modules. The claim that makes it interesting is that the same hectare produces both food and electricity, and the claim that makes it difficult is that the two uses compete for the same sunlight.

There is a genuine agronomic case. In hot, dry regions, partial shade can reduce evaporation and protect crops from heat stress, and some studies find higher yields for shade-tolerant crops under an appropriate configuration. The effect depends on the crop, the panel density, the tilt, the rainfall and the soil. It is not a general rule, and a conference is not the place where it becomes one.

The potential number is a land calculation

A figure of 3,000 to 14,000 gigawatts is produced by taking an area of land, applying an assumed density of modules, and multiplying. The range is wide because the assumptions are wide: whether the land is degraded or cultivated, whether the panels cover the whole field or a fraction of it, and whether the crop remains the primary use.

That arithmetic is useful for showing that land is not the binding constraint in the abstract. It says nothing about whether a farmer will sign a lease, whether the discom will buy the power, whether the crop survives the shade, or whether the capital is available at a rate that the harvest can service. Those are the questions that decide the outcome, and none of them appears in the potential estimate.

The conference's slogan, "Annadatas to Urjadatas", captures the ambition and skips the constraint. A farmer becomes an energy producer only if he owns the asset, or leases the land on terms that survive a bad monsoon, or is paid for the power reliably. The transition is a financing and contracting problem before it is a technology problem.

Three constraints that decide the outcome

The first is yield. Shade reduces photosynthesis, and the reduction is not uniform. A configuration that suits turmeric or fodder may be wrong for wheat or cotton. Indian agronomic research on agrivoltaics is thin relative to the scale of the claim, and the MNRE handbook released at the conference is a policy document rather than a body of field trials. Until there are multi-season trials across agro-climatic zones, the yield effect will be asserted more often than measured.

The second is water. Panels shed rain in concentrated streams, which can cause erosion and uneven moisture, and cleaning the modules consumes water. In a country where the groundwater assessment already shows stress in large parts of the northwest, a technology that adds a water demand has to account for it.

The third is tenure. Most Indian holdings are small, and a significant share of cultivated land is leased informally. A solar asset has a life of twenty-five years. A farmer with a two-year oral lease cannot finance a twenty-five-year asset, and a developer cannot enforce a lease that is not recorded. The land records and tenancy reform question, which predates solar, becomes a renewable energy question here.

The PM-KUSUM test

PM-KUSUM is the natural vehicle because it already connects farmers to solar pumps and to grid-connected generation. Its experience is instructive. Component A, the standalone pump, scaled. Component B, feeder solarisation, moved more slowly because it requires the discom to reorganise its distribution. Component C, the grid-connected pump with a sale of surplus, ran into the familiar problems of interconnection, metering and payment.

An agrivoltaics programme under the next phase inherits all three. The additional difficulty is that it must also protect the crop. A scheme that pays for capacity but not for agronomic support will produce solar plants with a token crop, which is a land use change wearing an agricultural label.

What would make it work

Four conditions are necessary, and they are all institutional rather than technical.

A standard configuration by agro-climatic zone, tested over at least three seasons, so that a farmer is not asked to experiment with his own livelihood. A lease model that is recorded, transferable and indexed, so that the landowner and the cultivator can be different people without the asset becoming unbankable. A grid connection with a must-run guarantee for small generators, because a farmer cannot absorb curtailment. And a payment mechanism that does not depend on the discom's cash position, which is the lesson of every solar scheme for small producers.

None of these is a breakthrough. They are the ordinary conditions of any distributed energy programme, and they are the reason the potential number has not translated into capacity.

Why it matters for the exam

The topic sits at the intersection of three syllabus areas: renewable energy targets under GS3, land and tenancy under GS2 and GS1, and the political economy of subsidies. A good answer distinguishes between the technical potential, which is large, and the achievable potential, which is set by institutions.

It is also a useful example of a general principle. India's renewable targets are often discussed as a finance problem, and finance is necessary. But the binding constraints in agrivoltaics are land records, grid access and agronomic evidence, which are governance problems. A programme that treats them as technical will underperform its own estimate.

What to watch

• The draft of the agrivoltaics component in the next PM-KUSUM phase, and whether it includes a lease standard and a must-run guarantee.
• Whether the MNRE handbook is followed by a multi-season trial programme, or remains a guidance document.
• The first set of state-level land and tenancy rules for solar leases, which will decide whether smallholders can participate.
• Whether the AgriPV potential estimate is revised downward once water and tenancy are included.

Quick answers

What is agrivoltaics? The use of the same land for agriculture and solar generation, with panels raised or spaced so that crops can be grown underneath or between them.

What is India's stated potential? The conference cited a range of 3,000 to nearly 14,000 gigawatts, which is a land-area calculation rather than an economic estimate.

What is the main constraint? Not land in the abstract, but crop yield under shade, water demand, insecure tenancy and grid access for small generators.

Sources

1. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, AgriPV Policy Handbook, released at the seventh AgriVoltaics World Conference, 2026.
2. Press Information Bureau, seventh AgriVoltaics World Conference, New Delhi, 2026.
3. India Agrivoltaics Alliance, Decision-Making Tool, 2026.
4. International Water Management Institute, Book of Abstracts, AgriVoltaics 2026.
5. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, PM-KUSUM scheme guidelines and progress reports.
6. Central Ground Water Board, Dynamic Groundwater Resource Assessment, 2025.