The most important and basic requirement of a human life is to have continuous and uninterrupted supply of water. Lack of steady source of electricity has always caused severe hardship to people in need of water in remote areas. Presently, the agriculture sector, which uses power for irrigation pumps, contributes around 20 per cent of the total power demand of India. Also the grid power to agriculture sector is heavily subsidized. As the conventional power costs increases everyday it has a negative impact on the financial health of the State and power utilities.

Furthermore, there are a large number of agriculture pump-sets that currently use diesel power where there is no grid connection available. While diesel pump sets can be used in remote areas, it has several issues like high operating and maintenance costs, and the difficulty of getting diesel to the site.

To start with, diesel pump sets could be replaced by solar-powered pump-sets due to favourable cost economics. In comparison with the diesel engine based water pumping system, the cost of solar powered system can be recovered in less than 3 to 5 years period as there are no fuel costs. Besides being a clean and convenient source of power, solar power can reduce the subsidy burden on the government.

Solar water pumping system is ideal in remote locations where grid electricity does not exist or it is cumbersome to carry diesel to feed a diesel pump, despite having adequate water source. The beauty of using a solar pumping system is we get water delivery when you need it the most. The only thing we need is to set up the solar pumping system that operates on solar power.

A solar power pumping system has the following components:

1. Solar panels,
2. Pump controller, and
3. 3-phase AC pump (surface/submersible).

Sujala Solar Water Pumping System

The HBL-Sujala solar water pumping system offers an innovative solution that converts solar energy to electrical energy for water pumping. Unique smart control technology handles the initial surge current requirements. The system is used for an existing 3-phase AC pump ranging from 1 HP to 25 HP. Considering normal sunny hours, water discharge per day using Sujala is at par or higher than the discharge obtained with 6 hours of grid power.

Unique Features of Sujala

• Sujala water pumping system is designed to supply power to drive any existing 3-phase pump set for water in remote and rural areas from 1 HP to 25 HP. This is ideally suited for remote locations where grid electricity is sparsely available. On the long run this is cheaper than any diesel pumps because an SPV system has no fuel costs. Also maintenance and replacement costs are minimal
• Depending upon the daily water requirement a model can be selected

Advantages

• The unique smart control technology handles the initial surge current requirements.
• The controller can be designed to operate on other power sources.
• Dual switch for easy change over from grid to solar
• The system can be upgraded from an existing size to higher size pump
• The operating and maintenance are min as there are no moving parts.
• Pan India service network, and
• Unmanned operation.

Applications

• Irrigation & agriculture
• Drinking water in rural areas for community or individual
• Aqua culture
• Remote railway stations, and
• Grouped apartments.

Sanjay Alaham, DGM, Solar Panel Division, HBL power Systems Ltd, Hyderabad