International Solar Alliance & United Nations Launch Solar Agriculture Irrigation Program

Solar plus agriculture has been one of my kicks lately. It’s a combo made in heaven, and we should see much more of it in the coming decade. I recently conducted a whole podcast on the topic that, if you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend:

We’ve got more news on the solar ag front now. The International Solar Alliance and the United Nations Development Programme (USDA) have launched a program focused on solar agriculture irrigation. “With the United Nations Development Programme, the intergovernmental association has raised 1.8 million euros to deploy pilot projects integrating solar pumps and associated qualifying technical training in 10 countries in Africa and Oceania,” pv magazine writes.

The program is called the “Scaling Solar Applications for Agriculture Use” program. It is working to increase the number of decentralized solar agriculture installations in the 10 designated countries, which are Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, the Republic of Sudan, Senegal, South Sudan, Togo, Tuvalu, and Uganda.

This is a two-year program, for now. ISA and USDA want to help the participating countries “to design and implement large-scale projects and programs aimed at integrating solar pumping technology into agricultural practices.”