Vadodara: The farmers in the country can do away with their dependence on conventional forms of energy for operating pumps to water their fields as a private company has come up with a solar-energy operated pump, which will also reduce environment pollution.ABB India has developed a solar-powered water pump for irrigating crops with rural India facing problems in the supply of electricity and availability of diesel for operating gensets.
“ABB solar pump drive starts automatically when there is enough sunshine and the motor connected to it begins to run the pump to draw water.
“At sunset, the drive turns off the motor and the water flow ceases,” Vinod Raina, senior Vice President (Transformers division) at ABB India, said.
He added that the built-in maximum power point tracking functionality enables the pump to run at maximum power using the available solar energy.
Raina said that switching from use of conventional energy or diesel gensets to solar power can free up as much as 18 per cent of the electricity that can be used for other purposes.
As much as 18 per cent of the total electrical energy generated goes into agriculture. There are nine million diesel pump-sets in India.