Home
Council on Energy, Environment and Water Integrated | International | Independent
ISSUE BRIEF
Making Remote Monitoring of Solar Pumps Work for States
24 September, 2021 | Sustainable Livelihoods
Anas Rahman and Abhishek Jain

Suggested citation: Rahman, Anas and Abhishek Jain. 2021. Making Remote Monitoring of Solar Pumps Work for States. New Delhi: Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

Overview

Over the past few years, many states have mandated Internet of Things (IoT) functionality, commonly called Remote Monitoring Systems (RMS), for solar pumps supported by subsidy schemes to monitor pump performance in real-time. This study looks at the RMS deployed in Chhattisgarh, the leading state in solar pump deployment. The study examines the general state of RMS currently in use and its utilisation by the states.

Key Findings

  • Based on an overview of RMS, this study found that:
  • The RMS data is fragmented across multiple portals typically managed by the manufacturer of the pump controller, making it difficult for the states to get an aggregate view of all pumps installed in the state.
  • The RMS portals follow significantly different data structures, making it impossible for the states to unify it under one portal, even through APIs.
  • The presentation of data in the portals are not in a way that facilitates state-level analysis of pump utilisation and performance.
  • None of the portals is designed to facilitate state-level monitoring of solar pumps

Source: Authors’ compilation

  • The study also took a closer look at the portal with the largest number of pumps to examine the quality of data. It found that:
  • Even critical parameters like lat-long data and beneficiary address are either missing or incorrectly entered, which could severely hamper monitoring and corrective actions.
  • Due to lack of utilisation, the number of new pumps registered in the portal has dropped drastically. Even the number of existing pumps transmitting data has significantly decreased over the years, often due to the expiration of the sim card validity.

The number of pumps logging data is consistently decreasing over the years

Source: Authors’ analysis

  • There is a significant data loss at the systemic and individual-pump levels. An analysis disaggregated along the different years of the installation shows that the quality of devices is the primary determinant of data quality.
  • The Union Government has recently launched the Solar Energy Data Monitoring (SEDM) platform, envisaged to be a unified platform for data from all solar pumps installed across the country. The multi-tiered structure of the portal enables effective data monitoring and utilisation across many levels.

Key Recommendations

  • Adopt  SEDM platform, which could solve many of the technical challenges identified by the study. With SEDM, states could migrate the existing systems to the new platform.
  • Create inbuilt system checks to allow states to tackle the bad quality of data and devices at the design stage of state-level portals.
  • Design an effective monitoring plan specifying the guidelines and responsibilities for converting insights from the portal to immediate action points and guiding policies.
  • Immediate actions include revision of tenders, penalising of vendors etc.
  • Train officials from departments other than the implementing agencies for better utilisation of data.Public access to anonymised data will also infuse great transparency into the scheme.

HAVE A QUERY?

author image
Fellow & Director - Powering Livelihoods
States should build the capabilities of the officials of the implementing agency to get them to utilise the insights from Solar Energy Data Management (SEDM) platform and integrate them into their decision-making process.

Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) is fast becoming ubiquitous in our lives. Among other benefits, IoT enables remote monitoring and controlling of connected devices. In solar pumps, IoT integration is commonly referred to as a Remote Monitoring System (RMS) and has been mandated by the government for several years. It enables pump users to remotely monitor and control their operation; and the state governments, to keep a close watch on the use of these subsidised assets.

The real-time data generated from solar pumps across the country can give critical insights on asset use, water withdrawals, and irrigation patterns among the rapidly increasing solar pump beneficiaries. It makes RMS highly valuable in guiding data-based decision-making for the expansion of public support to solar pumps. However, to realise this potential of RMS, it is critical to have standardised, comparable, and publicly available data from such RMS across government-supported solar pumps. Since 2015, many states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have mandated RMS for solar pumps supported by the state. In this brief, we use a sample of RMS data from Chhattisgarh,1 a leader in the deployment of solar pumps in India, to examine the prevailing state of solar pump RMSs.

Key findings

The following are the main insights from our analysis of the RMS portals:

  • No unified portal: Typically, it is the manufacturers of the solar pump controller who design the RMS, as these are integrated with the controller. Solar pump installations in Chhattisgarh, since 2016-17, has witnessed seven different controllers. Consequently, the data from solar pumps is hosted across the respective portals of controller manufacturers, making it extremely difficult for the government or any agency to undertake an aggregate analysis or have a complete overview of the solar pumps across the state.
  • No standardised data structure: We find that the parameters recorded and the frequency of data captured, widely differs across the portals. Table 1 summarises the data structure in different portals. The lack of a standardised data structure makes it impossible to unify the data, and make an aggregated sense of the state of solar pumps, across the state.

Table 1 The parameters and frequency of RMS data vary between different portals.Source: Authors’ compilation

  • All data, no insights: Data is only as good as how it is presented to the user. The existing RMS portals do not provide any aggregated information across all pumps, for they only provide pump-by-pump information. Such information is not useful for the state administrators to understand the big picture about the usage, performance, and maintenance issues at the state- or district levels. The only statelevel data readily available in any portal are the total number of pumps installed and the number of pumps actively logging data in real-time. The remaining data are provided at the individual pump level. Figure 1 summarises the user interface of different portals.

To take a deeper dive into the quality of the RMS data, we selected one among the seven portals; the one with the largest number of registered solar pumps (designated as Portal 1). The following analysis is primarily based on this one portal, but a cursory assessment of other portals confirmed that most of the issues are common across portals.

1. Improper entries: We find that many critical parameters are entered incorrectly, and pump identifiers are missing. For instance, we found that for about 80 per cent of the pumps, the geotag was missing or pointing to the controller manufacturer’s headquarters. Similarly, other critical metadata like the pump owner’s address and the pump and PV array capacity were incorrectly entered for most of the pumps. We notice a similar issue in some of the other portals as well.

2. Poor maintenance and upkeep: We find that a majority of the RMS systems lack proper maintenance, which is reflected in two ways:

  • The number of pumps transmitting data has been gradually declining, in most of the portals. Figure 2 shows the number of pumps logging data on any given day. Out of the 1,306 pumps that had logged data at least once in the portal since about mid2016 (when the state solar pump scheme had just begun), only 446 pumps continued to transmit data as of December 2020. Figure 3 depicts the period of data transmission for pumps installed in various years. Occasionally, the pumps go offline in bulk. One likely reason could be that the SIM cards for the RMSs were activated in bulk on a particular date and became invalid due to the lack of timely recharge.
  • Across all portals, the number of new pumps being registered showed a significant drop; in most cases, dropping to zero by 2019, although the number of installations in the state has remained at a constant 20,000 pumps a year since 2016-17. In Portal 1, the last pump was registered at the beginning of 2019, although the scheme is ongoing and vendors use the same controller as before (Figure 3). Across all the portals, we could only account for about 10,000 pumps, which is only 16 per cent of the total number of pumps installed. In the absence of proper scrutiny by the state government—which itself is a result of poor portal design—the manufacturers are not complying with the RMS mandate, as specified in their contracts; especially that of providing RMS data during the lifetime of the solar pumps, in an attempt to corner undue profit margins.

3. Data loss: We find that the data logging of pumps is not consistent even between their installation dates controllers against the annual contracts by CREDA, the RMS devices used in 2017-18 were likely to be of better quality than those used in the 2016-17 pumps. This points towards the need for mandating good quality RMS devices and prescribing the limits of data loss for individual devices.

Figure 1 None of the portals is designed to facilitate state-level monitoring of solar pumps

Source: Authors’ compilation

Figure 2 The number of pumps logging data is consistently decreasing over the years

Source: Authors’ analysis

Figure 3 A significant proportion of pumps in the portal stopped transmitting data after the second year of installation itself, indicating non-compliance with the RMS mandate as per the contracts

Source: Authors’ analysis

Note: The number on the y-axis represents individual pumps in their chronological order of installation. Each dot in the image represents a day when the pump’s RMS transmitted data to the server. Blank areas represents days without any data from the particular pump.

Figure 4 Pumps installed in 2016-17 face a higher rate of data loss than those installed in 2017-18

Source: Authors’ analysis

Note: A missing data event is the gap between when a pump stops transmitting data and eventually restarts, signifying some technical issues in between. The duration of this event can vary from a day to months.

What went wrong?

While many states progressively adopted RMS in their schemes, there were critical gaps in their regulation and implementation. For instance, the only relevant clauses dealing with RMS in the Chhattisgarh solar pumps scheme are the following:

“Controller must have Remote Monitoring Arrangement as per MNRE & CREDA guidelines. System Integrators shall have to provide a link for monitoring of installed SPV Pumps and on-site data storage sufficient to log & store 1-year data…Login ID & Password of RMS must be submitted to CREDA as and when required.”

Instead of giving vendors a free hand to decide the RMS structure, the states should develop a standardised data structure and data capture frequency for uniformity across multiple vendors. Also, as discussed earlier, a unified portal is the only way to make sense of the state-wide installations and compare the performance of pumps across vendors. If leveraged well, RMS data can generate significant actionable insights. But not all state agencies have enough capacity or expertise to implement such IT systems.

The states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh had attempted to create a unified data portal for the solar pumps, but according to the representatives from the respective state agencies, both the states did not operationalise it. Gujarat developed a unified portal for its Suryashakti Kisan Yojana (SKY) scheme. The same platform has been further developed into the Solar Energy Data Management (SEDM) portal, following the advent of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthhan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) scheme.

Solar Energy Data Management (SEDM) platform

The SEDM system, being developed by the central government, envisions a single platform for gathering data from multiple types of solar power systems, including standalone pumps, grid-connected pumps, distributed power plants, and rooftop plants. It aspires to be a one-stop shop for multiple stakeholders, including farmers, vendors and government agencies. It performs multiple functions like monitoring and management of pumps and complaint registration and redressal. The portal is designed, based on the prescribed standards of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) for RMS systems. It has a multi-tiered structure with a state-level portal as the main portal with the raw data and dashboard displaying different performance metrics and the national portal providing a high-level view of solar pump schemes. Currently, MNRE is developing the portal for states, based on their demands and interests.

The way forward

The SEDM platform can resolve some of the data standardisation gaps. All states implementing solar pump promotion schemes should adopt the SEDM platform at the earliest. States will have to review their ongoing solar pump promotion scheme, to integrate these pumps into SEDM. States should also make an effort to enable the transition of already installed pumps to the SEDM platform.

However, data standardisation is only the first step. The states must also make sure that the vendors comply with the RMS requirements under their contracts, and ensure that the data is regularly logged for each installation. This can be achieved by introducing penalty clauses for non-compliance and incentivising the vendors through a grading system. Furthermore, states should ensure that vendors enter the static data, including geotags, addresses, and other farmer-related information. States should insist on creating in-built data quality checks within the state-level portal of SEDM.

Finally, the data is only as good as how it is utilised. Based on the challenges we faced and the insights we gained during this study, we make the following recommendations to the states:

  • States should build the capabilities of the officials of the implementing agency to get them to utilise the insights from SEDM and integrate them into their decision-making process.
  • States should recognise the need for developing an effective monitoring plan, since most of the issues regarding the existing portals—such as the lack of maintenance and data loss—are due to a lack of proper supervision by the implementing agencies. This challenge will continue, regardless of the platform and standardisation of data, unless states institute clear guidelines for the monitoring process.
  • States should strongly encourage public access to the anonymised, block-level aggregated data from the SEDM. The data will help researchers and civil society to regularly analyse the state of publicly supported infrastructure, and to guide and shape future strategies for the deployment of solar pumps in the country.
  • States should constantly review and revise their tender documents and other statutes, based on the insights generated from SEDM. Standards like minimum up-time and the amount of continuous downtime that should be considered as potential pump default, etc., can be decided on the basis of the data of the initial years.
  • States should also train officials from departments other than the implementation agency, such as the agriculture and horticulture department, groundwater board, etc., in order to get them to use the SEDM for their decision-making.

HAVE A QUERY?

author image
Fellow & Director - Powering Livelihoods

Sign up for the latest on our pioneering research

Explore Related Publications