Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Education and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Pralhad Joshi, announced significant policy developments for agrivoltaics in India during the curtain-raiser event for the 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026. The next phase of PM-KUSUM will include a dedicated agrivoltaics component focused on enabling small and marginal farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations, cooperatives and panchayats to continue farming while earning additional income from electricity generation, with land ownership remaining with farmers.
The Minister highlighted that agrivoltaics allows farmers to generate three income streams from the same land: from crop sales, power sold to DISCOMs, and savings on diesel costs. This provides income security particularly important for India's agricultural sector where more than 85% of farmers are small and marginal farmers cultivating less than 2 hectares.
India's renewable energy capacity addition was substantial, with 55.29 GW of non-fossil capacity added last year, exceeding the entire installed power capacity of several developed countries including Norway (40.6 GW), Switzerland (approximately 30 GW), Austria (34 GW) and Belgium (approximately 33 GW). Under PM-KUSUM, approximately 29 lakh pumps have been solarized, and decentralized solar contributed 16.3 GW last year, comprising 7.6 GW from PM-KUSUM and 8.7 GW of rooftop solar largely under PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana which is reaching 5.6 million beneficiaries.
The Minister emphasized the need for more research on agrivoltaics to determine optimal configurations for different crops, climates and regions, citing BAIF's Rural Innovation Centre in Pune where researchers are testing 17 solar configurations across 30 crops. He urged stakeholders to focus on developing structures that allow farm machinery movement, withstand local weather conditions, and narrow the cost gap with conventional solar through innovation in structures, materials and mounting systems. India has trained almost 70,000 Surya Mitras to build village-level skills.
The 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026 will be held from October 21st to 23rd, 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, bringing together farmers, policymakers, researchers, industry leaders and international delegations to deliberate on the future of agrivoltaics. During the curtain-raiser, the Minister launched the conference teaser and unveiled the official logo, while the Agrivoltaics Pitch Hub on the theme 'Fueling Farm to Fork Innovations' was announced with the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) as knowledge partner.