Irrigation Optimization for Agriculture Productivity: Case Study of a Hybrid Solar Microgrid in Rural India

This paper presents a two-stage optimization strategy for enhancing irrigation load servicing in existing stand-alone rural Indian microgrids. In this case study, the system design for an operating 8 kW rural microgrid in Bihar, India is taken under consideration. The rural loads are categorized as critical, irrigation and non-critical loads and are serviced by the Default Microgrid System (DMS). Optimization of the DMS is carried out in Intelligent Microgrid System (IMS) which involves two stages - Prioritized Load Management (PLM) and Energy Storage Enhancement (ESE). PLM serves the load demand based on defined priorities resulting in improved irrigation efficiency which plays a pivotal role in the rural context. The ESE optimizes the system storage size which results in maintained system cost. The resultant system increases the irrigation efficiency by 10.24% and improves the overall crop yield by 6.54% for this particular case study. However, this two-stage method is generic and can be employed across any rural Indian microgrid where the microgrid and solar pump operate as a hybrid system.