Agrivoltaics in India: Farmers Gain Steady Income but Uptake Remains Limited

Farmers in parts of India are experimenting with agrivoltaics — installing solar panels above cropland so electricity can be generated while crops are grown underneath — and some early participants report sharply improved and more predictable incomes. Despite enthusiasm from developers and pilot successes, the approach has yet to scale widely: about 40 agrivoltaic projects operate in India, according to the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI), and industry and government officials cite technical, financial and legal hurdles to broader uptake.

On the outskirts of Delhi, farmer Harpal Dagar said a deal he signed five years ago with a Delhi-based solar firm transformed his business. Under a 25-year arrangement, the firm erected panels high enough to allow continued cultivation below them, and Dagar receives annual payments of roughly $1,200 (about £900) per acre plus about $170 a month for operating and maintaining the panels. "When the solar company first approached us... many of us feared losing our land. It sounded too good to be true," he said. "But today, I believe it was the best decision I made. My income has tripled, and I sleep peacefully without the stress of climate or crop failure."

Agrivoltaics can offer multiple benefits: panels can shade crops, reducing heat stress and irrigation needs, and provide a steady lease or service income to farmers that is less sensitive to monsoon variability and market swings. But the system is not universally applicable. Panel arrays typically reduce the light reaching the ground by 15% to 30%, and denser layouts can block too much sunlight for staple cereals such as wheat and rice or for soybeans and many pulses. Developers and agronomists say higher-value, lower-light crops — leafy vegetables, spices such as turmeric and ginger, and some flowers — are better suited to the shaded environment.

Companies working in the sector have sought to address agronomic and financial risks. SunSeed, a Delhi-based agrivoltaics specialist, offers farmers options that range from continuing to farm for a fixed salary to transferring crop production responsibility to the company. "Our model ensures the farmer is not exposed to any risk. If the crop fails or there's a market issue, the loss is ours — not the farmers'," said Vivek Saraf, who founded SunSeed. The firm has also developed simulation software intended to model panel configurations, crop light interception and expected yields to guide design and crop selection.

The physical requirements of agrivoltaics add to upfront costs. To allow mechanical and manual farming beneath, panels generally must be installed at least 3.5 metres (about 11 feet) above the ground, which increases structural and installation costs by an estimated 20% to 30% compared with conventional ground-mounted solar farms. Smallholder farmers, who dominate Indian agriculture, typically lack the capital or appetite to own such systems, industry executives said, which has led to models where developers lease land or share revenues.

Government policy and contract design are additional stumbling blocks. "Agrivoltaics is promising, but we must protect both the farmer and the developer," said Manu Srivastava, who oversees solar and agrivoltaic projects in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. He and other officials point to the difficulty of enforcing long-term contracts in India; 25-year leases require clear obligations and dispute-resolution mechanisms to ensure fairness and viability. If land costs rise or structural expenses become too high, developers may find it hard to recover their investment.

Industry advocates say targeted subsidies and regulatory support could expand agrivoltaics, especially in rain-fed and climate-vulnerable regions where the combination of shade and a guaranteed income stream could aid adaptation. "In India, where more than 55% of the population depends on agriculture and cultivable land is under mounting pressure, agrivoltaics offers a transformative model," said Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, chief executive of NSEFI. He added that the approach can reduce irrigation needs, shield crops from heat stress and stabilise incomes by diversifying revenue streams for farmers.

India's rollout remains modest in international comparison. The World Resources Institute reports more than 500 agrivoltaic projects are operating in China, a figure industry sources cite as evidence that India has room to grow if economic and regulatory frameworks can be made more favourable.

Not all agrivoltaic ventures are developer-led leases. Farmer-entrepreneur Anand Jain said he began experimenting with agrivoltaics in 2024 after finding a plot with no electricity. Jain now has 14 acres under raised panels and a generation capacity of about 4.5 megawatts. His project, financed with bank loans and government support, required an investment of about $2.27 million. Jain said he has had promising results with strawberries and tomatoes under the arrays but that some crops, including cauliflower, performed poorly.

Jain cautioned that agrivoltaics is not yet a practical option for most small farmers without stronger public-private partnerships and financing support. "Let me be clear — agrivoltaics isn't yet feasible for small farmers in India," he said. "This model will only succeed if there is a strong partnership between the government and the private sector."

Developers, farmers and officials said progress will depend on resolving three core issues: matching panel design and layout to compatible crops through better agronomic data and modelling; lowering capital costs through subsidies, financing or standardised designs; and creating enforceable, transparent contracts that protect both landowners and investors over multi-decade project lifetimes. Where those conditions are met, advocates say agrivoltaics can both accelerate renewable generation and provide a partial safety net for farmers facing increasingly erratic weather.

The technology remains a niche but evolving response to two linked pressures in India: the drive to increase renewable power generation and the need to make agriculture more resilient to climate variability. Whether agrivoltaics moves beyond pilot projects will depend on policy choices and business models that can reconcile technical constraints with the economic realities faced by millions of smallholders.