India's agriculture sector consumes about 170 Billion Units (BU) of electricity which is equivalent to about 18% of the total National Electricity Consumption of India. The rapid increase in electricity consumption of the agricultural sector is largely due to growth of rural electrification as well as various benefits being provided to farmers in the form of electricity subsidies and free electricity for their agricultural loads. There are about 20.27 million electrified pump sets installed in agriculture sector. Further, due to the increasing demand for water to meet the agricultural needs, about 0.25 to 0.5 million new pump sets are being added annually.
The pump sets used in agricultural purposes are inefficient in terms of overall energy performance. The low energy performance is typically caused by low pump efficiency, over/under size of pump, improper preventive maintenance practice, and power quality issues. As a result, the state government incurs a huge financial as well as energy loss due to this wide use of inefficient pump sets.
Raminfo has replaced existing pump sets which had an efficiency ranging between 25% and 30%, with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) star labelling one with energy efficiency levels as high as 50 to 60%. The estimated saving potential of about 25% to 30% by simple replacement of the existing inefficient pump sets with BEE star labelled efficient pump sets.