With agriculture’s share of electricity consumption at
18 per cent of total usage, experts and officials on Monday said that
the country must move toward energy efficiency in irrigation to ensure
food security and meet demand for water.
“To
tackle energy security the European Union [EU] has brought policy and
financial experts as well as European business to India, offering
concrete solutions in this regard,”Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the
European Union Delegation to India, said during a workshop — titled
‘Agricultural Demand Side Management (AgDSM): Adopting Technologies to
Boost Efficiencies’ — organised by Federation of India Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the European Commission.
Mr.
Kozlowski added that partnership between India and the EU would
facilitate policy dialogue, bring in best practices, business solutions
and joint research and innovation, and would help with finding financing
models for clean energy and climate change.
More pumpsets
In
his address, Bureau of Energy Efficiency Additional Secretary B.P.
Pandey pointed out that about 20.27 million electrified pumpsets had
been installed.
“Due to the increasing demand for
water to meet the agricultural needs, about 0.25 to 0.5 million new pump
sets are being added annually…By adoption of high-efficiency pumps
about 25-30 per cent energy can be saved,” he said, adding that the
industry could supply sufficient number of pumpsets but there was a need
to work out a feasible finance model.
Nitin Zamre,
the Managing Director of ICF International India, said Centre-State
coordination in pushing for the policy was ineffective and there was a
demand-supply gap of star-rated pumps.
“Also,
concentration of agriculture pump manufacturers is in limited locations
and the high initial cost of energy efficient pumps becomes a deterrent.
There is a need to make international technology easily accessible and
mindset change towards transition to energy efficient technology,” he
added.
Source : The Hindu
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