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Agrivoltaic Project in Chittoor Aims to Enhance Farmer Income and Promote Sustainable Agriculture

A new agrivoltaic solar project has been introduced in Thirumala Raju Puram (Palyam) in Chittoor district as part of Project Chittoor, a long-term rural development initiative led by the Atria Group in collaboration with Atria Renewable. The project focuses on combining solar energy generation with traditional farming practices to improve both productivity and sustainability.

The initiative deploys field-integrated agrivoltaic systems, where solar panels are elevated above active farmland, allowing crops to grow beneath while generating clean energy simultaneously. Each installation block covers around 1 to 1.5 acres and has an approximate capacity of 300 kW, ensuring that agricultural activities continue without disruption.

Project Chittoor is designed as a self-sustaining rural ecosystem aimed at addressing key challenges faced by farmers, including fluctuating incomes, climate-related risks, inconsistent power supply, and rising input costs. By integrating solar infrastructure into farmland, the project introduces an additional and stable source of income without reducing cultivable land.

The electricity generated through these systems will be used to power shared agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation pumps, borewells, cold storage units, dryers, and processing facilities within farming clusters. This approach reduces dependence on conventional grid power, lowers operational costs, and helps retain more value within the local agricultural economy. Surplus energy generated can also create additional revenue opportunities for farmers.

In addition to energy benefits, the elevated solar panels provide partial shading, which can help reduce heat stress and water evaporation for certain crops, thereby improving resilience during high-temperature conditions.

Speaking on the initiative, Dr. Sunder Raju, Chairman of Atria Group, emphasized that agrivoltaics enables simultaneous production of food and energy from the same land, enhancing income stability while strengthening long-term rural resilience. He highlighted that the project is focused on building sustainable systems that can operate effectively over decades.

Karthik Raju, Executive Director of Atria Renewable, noted that the system has been designed to directly support real farming needs by integrating energy into essential agricultural processes such as storage and processing, rather than treating it as an add-on.

Project Chittoor spans approximately 600 acres and aims to deploy around 6 MW of agrivoltaic capacity across the region. The broader vision is to make clean energy a core component of farm infrastructure, alongside irrigation, storage, and processing systems.

Overall, the initiative presents a scalable model for dual land use, enabling simultaneous food and energy production while reducing costs and improving income predictability for farmers without compromising agricultural output.