Development of a Low Cost, Microcontroller Less Irrigation Pump Controller for Solarised Irrigation System

India has an enormous potential of solar energy due to its geographical position and therefore several initiatives were taken by the Government of India (GoI) for maximizing the utilization of the green energy. Recently Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had started Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evem Utthan Mahabhiyan (PM KUSUM) scheme for the solarisation of grid connected agricultural pumps. The objective of this scheme is to add about 25GW of solar energy by 2022. A novel low cost, microcontroller less irrigation system is proposed in this paper which can be useful for such solarized grid-connected irrigation system and can reduce the energy and water wastage considerably. In this proposed system, the switching operation is performed according to soil moisture content, Photo-Voltaic (PV) generation availability and electricity grid voltage conditions by using a low cost, dedicated electronic circuitry and thereby eliminating the need of any microcontroller.