Under each solar panel, there’s a question we haven’t shouted loud enough about: What are you going to do with the land that powers our clean future? The Indian solar revolution is one of the most incredible energy shifts in the world; there exists a quiet and seldom talked about paradox within it Large-scale solar installations, built to fight climate change, can disrupt the very ecosystems that keep the surrounding land cool, alive, and breathing. This insight takes one of India’s earliest landmark solar parks as a lens, explores a phenomenon called the Photovoltaic Heat Island Effect, and reveals a nature-inspired solution, Agrivoltaics, that allows solar energy and agriculture to share the same land in perfect balance. From ancient forest wisdom to modern government policy, this is the story of how India is learning to build its clean energy future without leaving nature behind.

The Early Footprint of Clean Energy

When India decided to build Shakti Sthala in Pavagada, Karnataka, it was an important milestone in India’s green energy journey. Launched in 2018, the Pavagada Solar Park was among India’s earliest and most ambitious largescale solar installations. It covers 13,000 acres of land in the Tumkur district. Around 2,300 farmers leased their holdings for 28 years. The park generates 2,000 megawatts of electricity. It was proof that India could do this, that a developing nation could lead on clean energy, not follow. But in the communities surrounding those 13,000 acres, residents began noticing something unexpected. The nights were becoming warmer. The greenery that had once surrounded their homes was fading. The land that had always breathed and cooled and lived in a quiet, invisible rhythm had gone still. How can a project built to fight warming make its own neighbourhood feel hotter?

The Cooling System That Disappeared

Healthy farmland is not simply soil and crops. It is a living system. Beneath the surface lies an invisible world, earthworms aerating and enriching the earth, mycorrhizal fungi connecting root systems, microbes breaking down organic matter, and insects pollinating and decomposing. This underground ecosystem is as essential to agriculture as sunlight and water. Above the surface, plants absorb carbon, release oxygen, and perform transpiration, drawing water from the soil and releasing moisture into the surrounding air, creating a natural cooling effect that lowers the temperature of the entire environment. When thousands of acres of that living land are replaced with large, dark solar panels installed close to the ground, the air conditioner is switched off. The underground organisms lose their habitat. Soil compacts. Moisture cycles are disrupted. Vegetation disappears.

This phenomenon has a scientific name: the Photovoltaic Heat Island Effect (PVHI). A peer-reviewed study published in Nature Scientific Reports found that areas surrounding large solar farms can be 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than nearby natural land, particularly at night, when panels release the heat they absorbed during the day back into the surrounding air. There is a physics reason for this that is worth understanding. Standard silicon solar panels convert approximately 15 to 22 per cent of incoming sunlight into usable electricity. The remaining 76 to 85 per cent of the energy is absorbed as thermal heat. Without living vegetation below to cool the land through moisture and transpiration, that heat has nowhere to go.

Nature Had the Blueprint First

Here is what is most remarkable about this story: the solution was never in a laboratory. Humanity’s greatest technological breakthroughs have often come from observing the natural world. Watch how large birds, eagles, pelicans, and flamingos, spread their wingtips upward as they glide through the air. That upward curve reduces drag and allows them to travel vast distances without effort. Modern aircraft engineers observed exactly this, and today every commercial aeroplane carries those curved upturned tips on its wings, called winglets, reducing fuel consumption by up to five per cent on every single flight. Closer still to the story of solar energy: the lotus flower grows out of muddy water, yet its surface stays perfectly clean. Microscopic structures on the lotus leaf cause water droplets to roll off, carrying every particle of dust with them.

The lotus effect has been directly applied to solar panels to produce panels that are coated with a material that repels dirt and allows the panel surfaces to remain clear, which helps to efficiently maintain the efficiency of the panels and prevents the need for water-based cleaning in dry climates. The most patient engineer ever has been nature. Nature is the most patient and precise engineer. Look at a forest. These are large trees and smaller plants, on the same land and the same sunlight. The understory doesn’t suffer from a lack of sunlight. They live in harmony and mutually benefit each other. The tall trees offer shade, the smaller plants hold moisture in the soil, and they all contribute to a productive and cool ecosystem. Agrivoltaics (Agri-PV) is the principle of this. Agrivoltaics is the practice of mounting solar panels on raised structures that are high enough to allow for the movement of crops, farm animals and agricultural machinery underfoot. The land continues to be farmed. The vegetation continues to breathe. The soil ecosystem is preserved. And the solar panels continue to provide clean electricity. One piece of land. Two purposes. No compromise.

When the Land Stays Alive, Everyone Benefits

Agrivoltaics has co-benefits for all directions, and it is just these co-benefits that make it a successful concept to scale. Farmers: Agricultural income continues.

Farmers are still able to farm and make a living from electricity production. Planted crops such as spinach, tomato, onion and mustard, which are common in every Indian kitchen, can benefit from partial shade provided by the elevated panels, as it can help minimise the heat stress, slow down water evaporation from the soil and may even enhance growth conditions in the sweltering summer months. The farmer is indifferent between land and income. They gain both.

The soil and ecosystem: Earthworms, fungi, microbes and insects keep diligently working their way through the soil. Agriculture’s reliance on biodiversity is maintained. Birds and insects are retained in their habitat. It is not just a surface, it’s a living system.

Water: Agrivoltaic systems have been shown to lower water evaporation from soil by up to 30 per cent, due to partial shading, which arrests water loss. This is no little benefit in water-stressed areas; it is actually the difference between viable and non-viable farming in the dry months.

As for the solar panels themselves: This is the upside that many people don’t expect. The efficiency of the solar panels decreases with increasing surface temperature, which results in a 0.4-0.5 per cent decrease in efficiency for every degree Celsius above 25°C. The water vapour emitted by plants from the bottom of the system provides a more pleasant microclimate for the panels in an agrivoltaic system. The vegetation literally enhances the performance of the panels. Nature’s cooling system is good for the technology that shares the land.

India Is Already Building This Future

Pavagada was designed during a time when the big question in India was: At scale, can it be done? The response was overwhelmingly ‘yes’. What India learned from that period is now determining what is next. This is not just speculation, it is fact. India is actively working towards the implementation of these lessons gained in their coming projects. The Government of India has launched PM-KUSUM scheme (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthan Mahabhiyan), which is introducing solar energy in the agricultural fields, with the focus of supporting solar capacity to be installed on the agricultural fields by the farmers. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has started several agrivoltaic pilot projects in various states. The India Agrivoltaics Alliance is coming together to mainstream this approach. Projects are being actively deployed in the State of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Evidence for agrivoltaics is already compelling internationally. There are currently more than 2,000 AV systems in Japan. It has been commercialised in France in vineyards, rice fields and orchards. Efficiency gains from shared-land systems have been reported for both crop production and solar generation in Germany and the USA. And India’s overall vision of solar energy has become more believable than ever. India’s target of 500 GW non-fossil energy capacity by 2030 under the Panchamrit pledges made at COP26. Five years ahead of schedule, India has reached a major milestone with 50% of its installed power capacity coming from non-fossil fuel sources. India is now the 3rd biggest solar power producer in the world. Infrastructure, policy framework and momentum are all there. Now the challenge for India’s solar journey is not whether we can build at scale. We have shown that. The question is whether we construct in a manner that allows the land, farmer and ecosystem to develop with us.

The Idea That Changes Everything

Agrivoltaics is a non-complicated technology. It’s not an extraordinary amount of money. Doesn’t happen in a faraway land. It’s an observation that the forest discovered coexistence long before we thought about it, made it an engineering principle, made it a policy, made it thousands of installations throughout Asia, Europe, North America and Africa. The gaps in knowledge, as measured in 2018 when India’s early large-scale parks were being designed, have been narrowing in recent years. So, what we know now, we can build differently. And India is already doing just that. So, sure, some farmers are continuing to farm under those elevated solar panels, and that’s proof enough that clean energy and ecological responsibility don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Each kilowatt produced as earthworms dig below, crops grow around, and moisture rises into a cooler night sky is proof that we need not sacrifice one living system to power another. We never did. It is never right to kill one living system to utilise another. Agrivoltaics means we don’t have to ever again.

References

  1. Photovoltaic Heat Island Effect (PVHI): Barron-Gafford, G. A., et al. (2016). The Photovoltaic Heat Island Effect. Nature Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep35070
  2. Pavagada temperature increase, resident testimonies: Belagere, C. & Sripad, A. M. (2021, October 2). This massive solar park in Karnataka’s Pavagada ups the heat. The New Indian Express. https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/2021/Oct/02/this-massive-solar-park-at-karnatakaspavagada-ups-heat-2366515.html
  3. Agrivoltaics, science and co-benefits including 30% water reduction: Barron-Gafford, G. A., et al. (2019). Agrivoltaics provide mutual benefits across the food–energy–water nexus in drylands. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0364-5
  4. Solar panel efficiency and temperature loss (0.4–0.5% per degree Celsius): Skoplaki, E. & Palyvos, J. A. (2009). On the temperature dependence of photovoltaic module electrical performance: A review of efficiency and power correlations. Solar Energy, 83(5), 614–624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2008.10.008
  5. India’s 500 GW Panchamrit target by 2030: Government of India (2021). India’s Panchamrit Commitments at COP26, Glasgow. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1795071
  6. PM-KUSUM Scheme, solar on agricultural land: Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India. https://mnre.gov.in/pm-kusum
  7. Lotus effect and self-cleaning solar panels: Ganesh, V. A., et al. (2011). A review of self-cleaning coatings. Journal of Materials Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/C0JM03404D
  8. Bird winglets and aircraft, biomimicry: Shyy, W., et al. (2007). Aerodynamics of Low Reynolds Number Flyers. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551154

Nishanth R is a B. Com Honours student at Chanakya University, Bengaluru, Karnataka.