Drip irrigation powered by solar cell for dry rainfed and no electricity area

The objectives of this research were to design and test a suitable set of drip irrigation powered by solar cell for sugarcane field in dry rainfed and no electricity area. This design was based on 1.5 m of sugarcane row width and 40 m of drip tape length. A drip tape was laid on soil surface and it could be rotated to other sugarcane plots. The components of the set were a 1 m³ water tank installed at 1 m high and water was easily refilled, 12 volt DC water pressure pump with maximum head and flow rate of 2.80 bar and 1.02 m³/hr, stand alone inverter with solar charge controller of 12 V capacity, a crystalline solar cell with maximum power of 120 Wp ±3%, 18.0 V, 6.67 A, 12V and 75 A battery, a cents 1” and 140 mesh type of disk filter, a cents1” ball valve and cents 1” main pipe drip tape with drip spacing of 0.20 m. The test results indicated that maximum number of drip tape usage at a time was 5 drip tapes with 0.20 m drip spacing, 40 m of drip tape length and 1.5 m of sugarcane row width at 1 bar of water pressure. The system provided average dripper flow rate (qs) of 0.82 L/hr, maximum dripper flow rate of 0.98 L/hr, minimum dripper flow rate of 0.63 L/hr, difference between maximum and minimum dripper flow rate of 35.85%, emission uniformity (EU) of 76.83%, precipitation rate of 2.73 mm/hr and total water flow rate of 820.00 L/hr to irrigate 300 m² area at a time. Total cost of installation was 545 US$ : 29 US$ for drip set, 510 US$ for solar cell set and 6 US$ for labor.