Economic Viability of Solar Photovoltaic Water Pump for Sustainable Agriculture Growth in Pakistan

Pakistan is an agricultural country where 25% of total land area is utilized for cultivation of crops. But this sector is drastically affected by energy crisis currently worrying the whole world. In current article solar PV technology utilization for sustainable growth of agriculture sector of Pakistan is presented. Water pumping is major energy consuming operation of agriculture field that may be shifted to solar energy based electricity. This work elaborates the economic feasibility of PV solar powered water pump systems, simulated in RETScreen international software developed by Canadian Energy Center for five major agricultural cities of Pakistan named; Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Rahim-Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan. The weather condition and geographical information of sites are imported from NASA reported software database. Solar PV water pump system viability is estimated on the basis of economic determinants like NPV, IRR and payback periods. Simulation outcomes predict that installation of single 4.48 kW DC-solar PV water pump will result into 7-8 MWH electric power savings and 1.2-1.4tCO2 greenhouse gases emission reduction produced due to combustion of fuel for generating base-case electric power. Commercial implementation of solar PV water pumping technology can be a milestone to figure out energy and economy related agricultural issues and reducing environmental concerns.