This award winning intervention was implemented in Nabarangapur, which is one of the poorest and Maoist affected district in south-west Odisha bordering Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. Agriculture is monocrop as its primarily rainfed, despite many water sources in the vicinity. Reason being, most of the water sources are 1-1.5 kms away. On one hand there is no canal system to bring water to the fields, on the other hand, Kerosene and Diesel run pumps is an expensive, environmentally damaging solution. There is challenge of commercial viability of clean energy based Solar Water Pumping System due to 50% capacity utilization

Looking at the above, Schneider Electric came up with a community owned and run, integrated technological solution that tries to maximize Solar Water Pump utilization by seamlessly enabling powering of various agro/domestic loads through solar microgrid that runs the waterpump during the idle hours.

This resulted in assured irrigation for 2-3 crops annually, raising income levels and arresting migration of youth during summer time. The drip irrigation also allowed for optimal water usage. Solar powered sugarcane crushing, rice milling led to reduced manual labor, increasing farmer productivity, women led solar user groups also led to women empowerment in the region