Solar Powered Irrigation Syste

The Toolbox on Solar Powered Irrigation Systems (SPIS) is designed to enable advisors, service providers, and practitioners in the field of solar irrigation to provide broad hands-on guidance to end-users, policymakers, and financiers. The list of tools will be expanded with future updates. All tools and further information are available under: https://energypedia.info/wiki/Toolbox_on_SPIS

Included functions:

Farm Analysis Tool - helps you to do a financial analysis for an agricultural enterprise. Farm productivity and profitability are assessed through average annual agricultural production. The tool is useful for establishing a baseline or to assess the impact of planned investments. This tool allows one to support a farm enterprise towards identify unnecessary costs, determine best value agricultural activities, and correctly monetize different farm inputs.

Market Assessment Tool - considers basic geophysical parameters and provides guidelines and weights to evaluate parameters that inform an enabling business environment for SPIS.

Water Requirement Tool - calculates the water requirement for a variety of crops and livestock according to geographic and climatic parameters.

Pump Sizing Tool - allows for the calculation of pumping head, the required solar PV module capacity, and selects suitable pump technologies.

Payback Tool - allows for a comparative assessment between income and three different irrigation pumping options. Information required for using this tool includes investment and operational costs for the different pumping systems, anticipated income from agricultural production, and basic economic conditions (e.g. inflation rate).

The Toolbox on Solar Powered Irrigation Systems is made possible through the global initiative Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGC). In 2012, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Duke Energy, and the Overseas Private Investment Cooperation (OPIC) combined resources to create the PAEGC initiative. The objective of PAEGC is to support new and sustainable approaches to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy solutions for increasing agriculture productivity and/or value for farmers and agribusinesses in developing countries and emerging regions that lack access to reliable, affordable clean energy.

The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or any of the PAEGC Founding Partners concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by GIZ, FAO, or any of the PAEGC Founding Partners in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of GIZ, FAO, or any of the PAEGC Founding Partners.