Oorja

India is facing an agrarian and climate crisis. ~100 million farmers rely on expensive and polluting diesel irrigation pumps, limiting crop yields. Lacking access to cold storages, they cannot diversify to high-value crops. This is a major contributor to rural poverty with immense carbon footprint.

Solar technology can cost-effectively meet these agricultural energy needs, but 90% of farmers cannot afford it. Oorja has developed integrated solar energy services that remove the upfront cost barrier for technology acquisition. Oorja finances, operates and maintains community-scale solar infrastructure for irrigation, agroprocessing and cold storage on/near-farm. It sells irrigation water, milling and refrigerated space to groups of farmers on pay-per-use basis. This enables farmers to access year-round energy services, reduce irrigation and milling costs, grow and preserve high-value crops and sell them at greater profit. Scaling these services across India will increase agricultural productivity and income among marginal farmers and reduce on-farm GHG emissions. 

India’s agricultural sector gives livelihood to 70% of the rural population, but is starved of reliable and affordable energy sources. Major on-farm energy needs are for irrigation, post-harvest processing and refrigeration of produce. 9 million diesel groundwater pumps are used for irrigation, consuming 4 billion litres of diesel annually. Farmers face volatile fuel prices, low pump efficiency and frequent engine breakdown, amounting to high irrigation costs of INR 6,000-8,000 (US$ 80-110) per acre per year. Diesel surface pumps often cannot draw water during the dry season (March to June). Inadequate irrigation leads to low crop yields and crop failure. Agro-processing mills account for 40% of rural electricity demand and are usually diesel-powered, leading to high operating costs. Farmers lack access to cold storage facilities and up to 40% of fresh produce is wasted, causing them to make distress sales and discouraging diversification to high-value crops.

86% of India’s farmers are small and marginal with fragmented landholding. They cannot afford to invest in individual solar technology which would be more cost-effective. Reliance on fossil fuel and absence of alternative energy solutions in agriculture are major contributors to poverty, stifling productivity and income, and generating immense carbon footprint.

Oorja offers integrated pay-per-use solar energy services split into three verticals – irrigation, agroprocessing and cold storage.

Under “Oonnati”, Oorja installs BLDC or AC submersible solar water pumps of 3-5 HP capacity delivering 250 m3 of water daily, each for shared use by 15-20 farmers. Water is metered using a flowmeter and sold on a per-m3 basis, achieving 20% cost saving relative to diesel pumping. Each system contains embedded remote monitoring technology. Oonnati is live in 2 Indian states serving 130+ farmers. In June 2020, Oorja will launch an agroprocessing service “Oojjwal” for solar-powered flour milling. It is also preparing to pilot a refrigeration service called “Oonnayan” by Q3-2020 by investing in 5 MT solar cold storages for shared use by 50 farmers.

Oorja finances, installs, operates and maintains community-scale solar infrastructure at/near the farm level. For lean operations, it uses a Cluster Model where each Cluster comprises of 1 cold storage, 6 solar pumps and 2 agro-processing units. Each Cluster is serviced by 3 operators hired from the village community and 1 solar technician/service agent, creating jobs locally.     

These disruptive energy services remove the upfront cost barrier for technology acquisition, as farmers pay only for services they avail.

Oorja’s services are targeted at marginal, low-income and tribal farmers in weak-grid rural areas of Northern India. Farmers are engaged in at least two growing seasons with average landholdings of less than 1 acre. Household income is derived predominantly from agriculture and many earn less than INR 40,000 ($525) per year. They are highly reliant on diesel for irrigation and milling and have no access to cold storages facilities.

Before bringing its services to farmers, Oorja conducts demand assessments and a detailed site audit to understand local agricultural practices and incumbent energy demand and expenditure. It informs the community about its services and forms a farmer group, avails land for installation of solar assets and collects membership fees from each customer. Any farmer with land near the service area of the solar assets can sign up for Oonnati, Oojjwal or Oonnayan services.

Farmers can avail these services year-round and save 20% on irrigation and milling costs, boost their crop yields by 15-30%, expand their cultivation seasons, grow high-value and perishable crops, increase produce shelf life and procure higher prices in the market, thus increasing their income from farming sustainably.  

Oorja addresses sustainability challenges in the agriculture value chain in two ways. It invests in solar infrastructure at the farm level and supports small-scale producers with physical farm inputs (water for irrigation) as well as value addition to harvested produce (milling and refrigeration). Oorja provides these resources as pay-per-use services at tariffs that are both more affordable and reliable than incumbent energy sources i.e. diesel. These savings and reliability benefits incentivise the ~90% of the farming population presently locked out of clean energy to transition to low-carbon solar energy, decreasing on-farm GHG emissions linked to irrigation, agroprocessing and cold chain. 

Oorja employs an innovative business model to provide on-farm energy services to BoP communities to whom they are currently inaccessible. For instance, in the cold storage segment, companies such as Inficold and Ecozen manufacture decentralised cold rooms suited for rural markets. However, their primary sales channel is direct sales to wealthier individual farmers in peri-urban markets. Similarly, pump suppliers manufacture efficient BLDC solar pumps, but even after capital subsidy a 5 HP submersible pump costs around INR 30,000 ($394) which is around 9 months’ income for most marginal farmers.

Oorja bridges the gap by investing in commercially-available solar technologies, combining them with off-the-shelf metering and monitoring systems if required, and selling services using a pay-per-use distribution model.

Compared to alternatives, which are primarily diesel motors, Oorja offers 1. Pricing at least 20% cheaper than diesel-based irrigation and milling, 2. High reliability and quality of supply, allowing for complete transition from diesel to solar power, 3. On-/near-farm hassle-free service which does not require farmer to travel long distance to rent diesel pump or access cold storage, and 4. Prompt servicing and maintenance taken care of by Oorja eliminating frequent repairs required by diesel motors.

Service tariffs are set relative to the dominant alternative. For instance, irrigation is priced 20% cheaper than the lifecycle cost of diesel pumping. Oorja’ services are not priced in comparison to the electric grid tariff as grid supply is unreliable, of poor quality, or unavailable on-farm and therefore not an alternative for Oorja’s target consumers. 

Oorja conducts system sizing and procures off-the-shelf components from reputed domestic suppliers. The core technologies used are:

• Solar PV water pumping systems: polycrystalline PV modules, PV mounting structures, MPPT pump controller or drive, electric motor (capacity from 3–10 HP, usually BLDC) and submersible centrifugal pump. May include a changeover switch to power agroprocessing appliance.
• Embedded remote monitoring technology: The controllers purchased from solar pump manufacturers are equipped with a SIM card for sending data to the server. PV current and voltage and pump status can be viewed on a third-party mobile app.
• Water flowmeter: An analogue water flowmeter is installed at the water outlet which is used to measure water output for use in accurate billing of the customer.
• A solar pump sizing tool developed in-house is used to ensure water extraction does not exceed groundwater replenishment in each given region.
• Cold storages: 5 MT cold storage in a marine grade insulated shipping container with 7 kWp PV mounted on top. A solar compressor is linked to thermal storage with 200 MJ capacity using RO water as a cooling storage medium. Perishable produce is stored at 4-18 °C and 65-100% relative humidity. There is smart control of temperature setpoint with embedded remote monitoring features.
• Agroprocessing: for flour milling, a multipurpose pulveriser with motor capacity and electrical input matched to the controller output of solar pumps so the appliance can draw power from the pump’s PV array when it is not in use.

The solar and other technologies used in Oorja’s solutions are commercially-available and mature technologies that are widely used, however they are not yet scaled among the majority of the farming population, i.e. small-scale and poor farmers.

Solar water pumping is based on photovoltaic (PV) technology, which converts solar energy into electrical energy to run an AC or DC motor and a pump. Submersible pumps are used as they have high lift capacity suited to regions of Northern India with water level <10 m. Recently, pump manufacturers have started using brushless DC (BLDC) motors which are slightly more expensive than AC motors, but are more efficient and require very little maintenance. State-of-the-art solar water pumping systems use electronic systems and intelligent software to optimise the output power, performance, and overall efficiency of the pump. Solar pumping is a mature technology that has been widely used worldwide, for instance over 100,000 solar pumps are in operation in India, though the market reach is far less than its potential, mainly owing to financing challenges.

Solar cold storages are a more nascent technology that are technologically mature but less widely adopted. For instance, Inficold uses a US-patented thermal storage technology that was technically tested by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (Government of India). We estimate around 1,000 solar cold storages have been deployed in India.

Oorja’s theory of change is that bringing access to affordable and reliable clean energy will reduce fossil fuel consumption and expenses, increase productivity and income among marginal farmers, and stimulate sustainable rural development and reduce GHG emissions.

Problem: Lack of access to clean, affordable and reliable energy for productive use in agrarian communities.

Solution: Build, install, operate and maintain off-grid distributed solar systems and sell energy services to farmers.

Inputs: Investment and working capital for solar assets; solar equipment; human resources for field operations and management; training and know-how on solar equipment sizing, operation repair and maintenance; land for installation.

Activities: Size, install, operate and maintain solar systems; train field staff; acquire customers; supply services year-round; collect payments and data; timely repairs and maintenance; provide customer service.

Outcomes: Reduced expenses on diesel; increased crop yields; increased cropping cycles; reduced diesel fuel consumption; reduced GHG emissions; creation of local employment

Outputs: Increased prosperity of farmers and better livelihood opportunities; higher agricultural productivity and crop diversity; low-carbon growth in rural areas

Impact indicators:

• Number of farmers receiving energy services
• Volume of water delivered (m3) / Amount of process milled (kg) / Crates of produce refrigerated
• Hours/days of power/water availability through the year
• Net irrigated area
• Number of growing seasons and crops
• Crop yields reported
• Income from agriculture reported
• Number of local jobs created
• Expenditure on energy and savings from replacement of diesel
• GHG reductions from decrease in fossil fuel

Evidence: Oorja has deployed 12 solar irrigation pumps in two states (Uttar Pradesh and Assam, India) with 130+ marginal farmers subscribed to date. Findings from 3 solar pumping pilots that have completed 1 year of operations showed that farmers have increased crop yields by 15% or more, many have expanded into a 3rd growing season and cultivating peppermint and maize for the first time thanks to year-round water availability, and 5 jobs have been created in last-mile rural communities. 

As of June 2020, we are serving around 130 marginal farmers with affordable and reliable irrigation services through the deployment of 12 community solar pumps with 56 kWp installed capacity in two states: Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

Oorja already has a mandate to expand this disruptive solution to agrarian communities in other underserved areas of India. In FY2020 we have a target of deploying 40 distributed solar projects, serving 600 marginal farmers with more than 5,000 direct and indirect beneficiaries and saving 141 tonnes of CO2e. 30 of these will be solar pumping projects and we will also launch allied solar energy services for agro-processing and cold storage in the same communities.

In five years, we expect to deploy more than 150 energy Clusters comprising 900 solar pumps, 150 cold storages, and 300 agro-processing appliances and increase income-generating opportunities among 18,000 smallholder farmers, saving 6,000 tonnes of CO2e and creating 450 full-time jobs. Oorja will be active in several underserved regions of Northern and Eastern India and neighbouring countries of Nepal and Myanmar.

In 2020-21, Oorja will expand the “Oonnati” irrigation service in Northern and Northeast states of India by deploying 30 solar irrigation pumps serving 600 marginal farmers. It will start fitting milling appliances onto solar pumps to maximise capacity utilisation thus launching the “Oojjwal” agroprocessing service. In Q3-2020 Oorja will pilot “Oonnayan” by deploying 5 solar cold storages in horticulture-rich regions. Oorja has already identified new project sites after a rigorous due diligence process and built partnerships with local ground partners for community mobilisation.

In the next five years, Oorja will expand its services in India and internationally in South/Southeast Asia. We expect to deploy over 150 energy Clusters. As a a for-profit social enterprise with a commercially viable funding model, the revenues from clean energy services will finance operations costs and recover the capital expenditure and the profits will be re-invested into new projects, capacity building, technology innovation, and reaching new segments. We envision to integrate and develop in-house IoT based remote monitoring and cutting-edge climate-smart technologies for monitoring and use technologies like drip irrigation to drastically reduce groundwater consumption.

The major challenges in the next year are:

• Raising patient capital (blended equity and grants) to scale our operations and support expansion into new markets using novel business model
• Mobilising farmers and accelerating customer acquisition: farmers are often unaware and need to be educated on solar technology and Oorja's services by those whom they trust

In the next 5 years, we will be challenged:

• To grow our sales and marketing efforts: we will require partners with good reach among target consumers
• To evolve our solar assets away from dependence on local servicing partners, since servicing is often very slow leading to extended downtime

Fundraising: We have identified mission-aligned impact investors and philanthropic organisations for our seed round. With considerable pilot project capacity implemented through grant support, we are generating a track record of early revenues and impact evidence.

Farmer mobilisation: Oorja partners with local grassroots agricultural NGOs, for instance Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA) in Assam. These organisations have established networks among marginal farmers, understanding of local agricultural practices and positions of trust to help educate and mobilise farmers.

Sales & Marketing: We are identifying large corporations who can serve as potential marketing partners and/or distributors of our solutions (agricultural equipment and input shops and distributors, farming equipment rental companies, etc). However, we will need to build out a dedicated marketing team internally.

Supply chain: We are partnering with reputed domestic suppliers and maintaining quality by outsourcing the installation to trusted EPC contractors. In the long run we will build more technical capacity in the team to handle technical faults to reduce reliance on suppliers for repairs and maintenance, especially after warranties expire. 

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We currently have a team of 10 people who are working on our solution full-time, and 1 person working part-time. This does not include contractors and temporary labour hired for installations.

Oorja has a diverse team with varied skillsets in rural development, finance and solar energy engineering and shared passion for impact and experience of deploying 56 kWp of solar assets in rural areas of India.

Amit Saraogi, CEO/co-founder, has 20 years of global experience in business consulting, financial services and international development with PwC and UNICEF. He brings to Oorja a strong grasp of business strategy, financial acumen, and operations expertise. Amit holds a Master’s in International Development from Columbia University, New York. He is an Echoing Green Climate Fellow.

Dr. Clementine Chambon, CTO/co-Founder, has 5 years’ experience in renewable energy research and consulting. She holds a Ph.D. in Bioenergy from Imperial and Master’s in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, and is a Forbes 30Under30 Social Entrepreneur.

Pushpendra Kumar is the Operations Engineer at Oorja and brings 4 years’ experience in the solar energy sector. He oversees technical O&M and is a B.Tech graduate in Mechanical Engineering.

Preeti Kumari is the Project Officer at Oorja where she handles timely delivery of projects, site selection, and impact monitoring. She holds a Master’s in Ecology & Environmental Studies from Nalanda University.

Narendra Kumar is a Sales & BD Manager with 10 years’ experience in rural business. He holds an MBA in HR & Marketing from Subharti University.

Chitrasen Kumar is a solar technician and undertakes maintenance, payment collections, customer service at Bahraich Cluster. He holds a diploma in mechanics and has two years’ work experience in energy and manufacturing.

Oorja works with partner organisations for technology provision, implementation, and finance.

Technology Partners

Technology is available domestically in India from reputed suppliers and is acquired through bilateral negotiation.

Implementation Partners

Oorja fosters partnerships with reputed grassroots agricultural organizations with established farmer networks. Oorja leverages its experience in operations and technical know-how and partner organisations assist in site identification, formation of farmer groups and help with community mobilisation, sensitisation about the benefits of solar-based services for livelihood generation, and training on vegetable cultivation and marketing at the farm gate. Oorja has partnered with a local agricultural NGOs such as Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA) in Assam.

Financial Partners

Oorja builds long-term relationships with impact investors, foundations, individual donors, and other financial partners for the provision of grant funding, equity investments, working capital loans, or other financial assistance. It selects financiers that are aligned with Oorja’s mission and objectives and Oorja then undergoes a due diligence process according to the investor’s requirements. Some of the financial partners of Oorja are DOEN Foundation, Echoing Green, Cisco CSR, and Climate-KIC. 

Oorja’s business model is to sell irrigation, agroprocessing and cold storage services at affordable tariffs on a pay-per-use basis. Under the “Oonnati” irrigation vertical, revenues accrue from one-time non-refundable membership fees charged to each farmer, and from water sales at fixed tariffs per m3 of water, which is disbursed, metered and post-paid in cash to the local pump operator. In horticulture-rich regions, Oorja will pilot a refrigeration service called “Oonnayan” where farmers will be able to store their perishable produce at the local market, paying membership fees and paying for refrigeration per crate per day, chargeable on a post-paid cash basis. Similarly under “Oojjwal” village residents will pay to grind grains and oilseeds, paying per kg of produce processed. Oorja uses a Cluster Model for operations. Each Cluster comprises 6 solar pumps, 2 agroprocessing units and 1 cold storage serviced by a multi-skilled field team. Locally hired personnel handle day-to-day O&M, customer servicing, payment collections and reporting, and asset security for a small geographical area. Responsibility for customer acquisition lies with the Area Sales/BD Head, working with partners such as agricultural NGOs, farmer producer organisations, women’s self-help groups and local authorities. The model is scalable to hundreds of rural districts with similar agricultural and energy consumption patterns.

Oonnati services target the ~90% of the farming population that are smallholders, are excluded by subsidy schemes and unable to invest in low-carbon technologies. By leveraging a community-wide solution, Oorja removes the upfront cost of technology for India’s 500 million smallholder farmers. 

Oorja achieves lasting improvements in agricultural productivity and farmer income by making solar energy radically accessible among marginal farmers. We are applying to Solve because we would greatly benefit from assistance with our scale and revenue models, as well as our ability to validate the impact we are achieving. We would benefit from technical advisors (potentially to join our board) to support the implementation strategy. This partnership would also further our goal of becoming a thought leader in the sustainable agriculture and energy nexus.

We are looking for the following partners:

• Business mentors with expertise in scaling service-based models in rural markets
• Technical advisors
• Experts in efficient groundwater utilisation notably implementation of micro-irrigation and drip technology
• Peers working on bringing energy/agricultural technology to underserved last-mile rural markets through for-profit business models