PM-KUSUM Next Phase to Support Agrivoltaic Capacity, Joshi Says at Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026

PM-KUSUM's next phase will support agrivoltaic capacity, where farmers grow crops and earn from solar power on the same land, union minister for new and renewable energy Pralhad Joshi said at the Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026 on Wednesday. India is hosting the three-day conference for the first time in the Global South.

A large agrivoltaic programme is planned under the next phase of PM-KUSUM, Joshi said. It will add agrivoltaic capacity by linking the scheme with existing agriculture programmes. Elevated and tilted structures make agrivoltaic plants 25-30 per cent costlier than ground-mounted solar, and the government wants to reduce this cost gap, he said.

Joshi said the average cost of power supply was around ₹7 a unit in 2025-26, while some agrivoltaic estimates put generation cost at ₹3.20 to ₹3.30 a unit. India's non-fossil fuel capacity has reached 308.03 GW, more than 55 per cent of its total installed capacity of about 560 GW, he said. About 25 lakh pump sets have been solarised under the scheme, helping around 25 lakh farmers replace diesel pumps, MNRE secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said.

Decentralised solar capacity was 16.3 GW last year, with 7.6 GW from PM-KUSUM and 8.7 GW from rooftop solar, mostly under PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which has crossed 63 lakh beneficiaries. A study by TERI estimates that 47.5 million hectares, about 30 per cent of India's 160 million hectares of cropland, is technically suitable for agrivoltaics, though actual rollout would depend on local conditions, Joshi said.

Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said agrivoltaic designs must suit small and marginal farmers, who are more than 85 per cent of the farming community, with an average landholding of 0.96 hectares. The AgriPV Manual of the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy estimates 1.10 lakh to 3.32 lakh full-time-equivalent jobs from agrivoltaics.