Electricity for Agriculture purpose

Hi All,

Good Day!!!

I’m new to this forum and new to the agriculture as well. A year back I bought 10 acres of land near Thalavady, in Sathyamangalam and also I have applied for the 50K free EB scheme. I came to know that recently Tamilnadu government has announced a new scheme called Meter EB or IIIA scheme. According to this scheme they will provide the EB connection for Agriculture within 2 to 3 months. But the only thing is that we have to pay Rs. 3.50 rs/Unit. I have applied for the same and expecting the EB connection within 1 month.

If anybody using this scheme please let me know the below details,

  1. How much of unit will be consumed by 5HP motor per Month or per hour?
  2. If I use 5HP motor and getting 2.5 inch of water, how long it will take to provide water for 1 acre of land? I mean the total hours taken?
  3. Will it be profitable if we use this scheme?

Awaiting your replies.

Thanks in advance.
Dhana.

Dear Mr.Dhanasekar,

You are correct, the free EB connection @ 50K is almost scrapped now as even the already pending applications looks like difficult to be executed. This among other reasons has made the launch of metered scheme in Tamil Nadu.

As per the scheme, the tariff would be a fixed charge/Hp,Rs.3.50/unit of consumption + taxes.

Coming to your queries;

  1. How much of unit will be consumed by 5HP motor per Month or per hour?

A 5HP motor is nothing but 3.7Kw motor, meaning when run for one hr it would consume 3.7units/hr.But catch is not all motors will have 100% efficiency and unity power factor.

Typically the most energy efficient motors have 80 ~ 85% efficiency & 0.9 PF, so power consumption would be roughly 6 units a hr i.e 48 units/8 hrs & 1488 units/8 hrs a day/31 days a month

  1. If I use 5HP motor and getting 2.5 inch of water, how long it will take to provide water for 1 acre of land? I mean the total hours taken?

I need below to answer your query

A)Total Borewell depth
B)Water Table
C)Total head (static + dynamic)
D)Water requirement per day in liters
E)Total area to be covered
F)Drip or flood application
G)Motors performance chart

  1. Will it be profitable if we use this scheme?

Lets assume you run 8 hrs a day, meaning you consume 1500 units apprx, which equals 1200 * 3.5 = Rs.5250 a month which after fixed charges & taxes apprx Rs.6000 a month and per year Rs.72,000.

In your case solar water pumping would be cheaper and better option.

Please visit [url=http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC350KOOG8JZvEZW0EkeHxsA]http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC350KOOG8JZvEZW0EkeHxsA[/url] to view few of our solar water pumping projects to get a brief idea.

Do call me or email me for a brief discussion if interested.

Best Regards.

Also,

Today’s update;

[url=http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/economy/tamil-nadu-power-fares-set-hiked-jayalalithaa-promises-subsidy-poor-101325.html]http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/economy/tamil-nadu-power-fares-set-hiked-jayalalithaa-promises-subsidy-poor-101325.html[/url]

Power tariff is all set to rise going April 2015. You would need to find out by what percent is your tarrif increasing if at all if there is any.

Many thanks Saravanakumar for your valuable inputs.

A)Total Borewell depth
600 ft

B)Water Table
We got water at 180 ft. Till 600ft we got around 2.5 inch of water.

C)Total head (static + dynamic)
Yet to install the motor.

D)Water requirement per day in liters
I don’t know the water requirement in liters.

E)Total area to be covered
Planning for 5 acres.

F)Drip or flood application
flood application

G)Motors performance chart
yet to buy.

Also please let me know the total cost (Including installation) for 5HP motor. Please mail me to dhanasekar.sp@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Dhana.

Mr.Dhanasekar,

Thank you for the message.

As per the details and request we have sent you our offer.

Please check and revert.

Regards,

Thanks Saravanakumar I got the quote. I have below questions,

  1. How many hours does this solar panels need to be charged before running the pumps. For example if we get sunlight at 9:00 AM, can we run the pump from 9:00 AM onwards? or need to wait for some more hours to charge? If so how many hours?

  2. Will the power generated from solar panels will be stored into the battery and then it will be passed to the pump?

  3. Will there be any government subsidy for this?

Thanks,
Dhana.

Dear Mr Dhanasekar

The system would start avg around 7.30Am and continue working till 5.30pm.

It’s a battery less model that works directly from sunlight.

Regarding subsidy, below are my views:

A) If applying for subsidy I need to bill with conjure to MNRE benchmark cost that is Rs.161.50 per watt. Meaning for 5000w it would be 5000*16 1.5 .MNRE is supposed to offer 30% subsidy on this price. This would be costly than the non subsidized cost
B) We can’t assure you the time frame even if you proceed after point A

Regards

[quote=saravanakumargcses]
A 5HP motor is nothing but 3.7Kw motor, meaning when run for one hr it would consume 3.7units/hr. But catch is not all motors will have 100% efficiency and unity power factor […] so power consumption would be roughly 6 units a hr. [/quote]

I dont agree with this. I guess it’s done to make electricity consumption appear high so that you opt for the offered solution - solar pumping.

If a motor is rated at 5 HP peak power, how can it consume more than that? Agreed efficiency will be less but that means less work done, not more power consumption.

1 HP is about 750 watts or 0.75 KW, so 5 HP = 5 x 0.75 = 3.75 KW. This is the power rating of the motor. No electrical appliance can consume more power than its power rating. So running the motor for one hour at its peak capacity would consume 3.75 units of electrical energy. Multiplied with cost per unit, Rs.3.5, this will cost Rs.13.125 per hour of motor operation.

Mod Comment: Mellowed the tone.

@ Newbie

Motor’s power consumption would depend on which grade stampings is used for stator & rotor core.A motor constructed using CRNO stampings would draw less current and a motor constructed using LC stampings would draw more power due to watt loss.CRNO electrical stampings are made out of silicon electrical steel grade material, with very less watt loss, meaning these motors would consume less power when compared to LC stamping motors.

Also, I have as well mentioned the same, the 5hp motor is nothing but a 3.7kw motor, but power factor and efficiency will determine the actual power consumed. Request you to check with the motor manufacturer for the same or if you use a pump, measure live power consumption using a energy meter.

And the “efficiency” mentioned in my posts are electrical efficiency and NOT mechanical efficiency. There is a difference between both.

If no appliance would consume more than its rated power, why would there be BEE standards made mandatory for electrical items? Its basic common sense.

Last but not the least, I accept constructive criticism, willing to learn when corrected, but when views are expressed in a way its deemed to be.

We have ways to convince our customers, and this is surely not the way. Even going by your calculation of Rs.13.125/hr, still makes solar convincing :slight_smile:

Regards

Also, for calculating power consumption of a 3phase motor, formula is;

Power in Kw = 1.732 * V * I * Power Factor

Where Power factor = Cos (phase angle between V * I), Typical PF values for indutive loads are 0.7 ~ 0.8

Also, FYI,

[glow=red,2,300]The name plate rating of a motor is the output power and not the input power.
[/glow]
Regards

I had to look this up and found this to be correct. I stand corrected. This is different from how home appliances are rated (input power). My apologies. However, even after counting 20% efficiency loss, the hourly consumption of a 3.75 KW (output) motor would not exceed 4.5 units. So 6 units is way off.

Because they routinely consume less than their rated power. For example a fridge with rating of 150W may have a BEE label saying it will consume only 384 units/yr under continuous operation. That’s because it doesn’t work at full capacity always otherwise it would consume 1314 units (0.150 kw x 365 x 24).

Apart from the efficiency loss, we have heat dissipation, frictional losses, poor impeller design, improper motor selection etc like many parameters and I have hence rounded up to 6 units hypothetically.

You cant be comparing 3 phase load to a single phase load, power consumption varies vastly and would primarily depend on the phase angle between the line to line voltage V and phase current I, as this would determine the PF of a 3 phase load.

[quote=saravanakumargcses]
Apart from the efficiency loss, we have heat dissipation, frictional losses, poor impeller design, improper motor selection etc [/quote]

Please don’t spin. All of the losses you listed are together considered under efficiency loss.

I have no reason to spin, electrical efficiency is different from mechanical efficiency and 20% cumulative loss in efficiency seems highly optimistic to me.

Am leaving the reader of this blog to take his/her own call.

Regards,

Quite a discussion that was. Peace For All !

[quote=Dhanasekar]
getting 2.5 inch of water, how long it will take to provide water for 1 acre of land?
[/quote]something i couldn’t figure, what is being done on a one acre field which requires a 5 hp pump to be running 8hr every day for 365 days? i had an encounter of sorts. By recollect, it took the farmer much more than 8 hrs for his 1 acre field by flooding method. But that was not everyday. So the figure of 72,000 is unrealistic.

@ saravanakumargcses

Going by the above math & stated requirements and your product matching of the same, am i right in saying that a 5hp machine would run between 7.30am and continue working till 5.30pm at full capacity every day for 365 days? Please elaborate. Regards, naf :slight_smile:

Not trying to divert from the topic… Is there not an option for Solar powered motor pumps… farmers in Rajasthan are using it at a very large scale and also, there is subsidy provided by the govt… not sure if you have explored…

You are looking at, just 5hp running for 365days 8hrs a day, hence feel this. Depending on the discharge, per se depth, you might even need to run more than 8 hrs or less than 8 hrs even. And, I agree it might not be every day, but can we say when all?

The figure of 72,000 is arrived like below;

A 5Kw solar power system has a potential to generate roughly 25 units a day ~ 1500 units bimonthly. So the calculations are for letting one know what it would cost to generate 1500 units on grid . Whether one has the need to run 8hrs every day or not is one’s own choice and one has to do his/her own math when these numbers dont match.

In this case, Dhana is going to buy a 5hp motor . Lets hear the numbers from him soon

I am saying the 5hp solar system would generate average 1500 units bimonthly. It would for sure run between 7.30 till 5.30, but full capacity or not will depend on sun. Typical functioning of the system is from 7.30 to 9AM half the rated discharge, 9AM to 3PM full discharge, 3 to 5.30PM half the discharge.

Hope this clarifies…

Just for the discussion and keeping to the topic, I’ll assume here that electricity is what is required here. Weather for irrigation or for Lighting or for charging, irrespective. Also i’ll assume that the farm is a min 2 acre.

Start with water, there are costs divided in groups,

  1. Drilling the bore and installing pipeline.
  2. Selecting the extracting machine (AC Motor or DC motor or Diesel Genset or any other machine doing the job)
  3. Fuel for the machine
  4. Maintainence for the machine in the long run.

Soloar water pumping sysytem would consist of

  1. Extracting Machine (say most efficient of the available options. please comment which it would be)
  2. Fuel for the machine (in this case, Solar panelling, the controller box, any other?) 5 hrs peak output & 5 hrs non-peak output.
  3. Maintenance, very low.

The difference in standard and solar mode would be mainly fuel and maintenance as bore drilling and machine would cost the same in both the modes. The difference is very huge when i make back of envelope calculations, imo. How will i justify the huge cost difference, kindly explain.

Regards, naf :slight_smile:

As long as the “fuel” is given free, yes, you are correct, going solar dont make sense.

BUT,

If the fuel is paid, whether for Grid power or Diesel, Solar as an alternate power is the best bet in the long run.

Would definitely request you to share these calculations.

Regards,

Now this is a part of science that has yet to be optimised, imo, and i’m a novice in that field.

if fuel is free - Solar, Wind, Geo Thermal, Bio Mass, Gravitational, Kinetic, Magnetic and Static in the air; They are all free on a conventional farm and can be used as energy, aka fuel. Next we need is a Tool to tap that energy, Convert it, Transfer it, Use it or Store it. This is layman version.

If fuel is paid …, Solar as an alternate power is the best bet in the long run. - So you’ve dismissed the other seven right away. Pardon my ignorance as you would for a 5th std boy. Let him know better, :slight_smile:

Would definitely request you to share these calculations. - I borrow water, at 120 / hr + 240 / day extra for pipe. I need 8 hrs, twice a month, i.e 81202 = 1920 + 500 = 2420. I will have to add couple digits just to get anywhere near, not to mention the interest element. But mine is not the query here, it’s just since you asked. My demographics & Landscape is entirely different from where the query came from.

Regards, naf :slight_smile: