SEPA Partners with NISE and TNAU to Launch India’s First 100 kW Tea-Voltaic Pilot in Ooty
Sustainability and Energy Practitioners Association has partnered with National Institute of Solar Energy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, IBS Tea Factory and Cares Renewables to launch India’s first 100 kW Tea-Voltaic pilot project in Ooty integrating solar PV systems within an active tea plantation to study agrivoltaic potential in hill ecosystem.
December 31, 2025. By Mrinmoy Dey
This is a part of a research-led initiative to evaluate agrivoltaic potential in hill plantations without affecting crop productivity or microclimate, SEPA said in a social media post.
The initiative is being led by SEPA, which is serving as the innovation and implementation partner, with technical guidance and benchmarking support from the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE).
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University is conducting scientific assessments of crop behaviour and yield response, while IBS Tea Factory is facilitating plantation-level integration and field validation. First Solar has partnered as the module supplier and Cares Renewables as the EPC partner.
The pilot was formally launched by Mohammad Rihan, Director General of NISE, who highlighted its significance as a climate-smart land-use model with potential replication across plantation geographies in India’s hill ecosystems.
The pilot has been developed to study how regulated shade, airflow, and solar exposure can be engineered to enable clean energy generation while safeguarding tea crop performance. The system deploys First Solar’s thin-film modules, selected for their efficiency in high-altitude and diffused-light environments typical of Nilgiris tea estates.
Designed as a ‘living research platform’, the TeaVoltaic project will generate long-term datasets on energy yield, crop response, and sustainability indicators to evaluate the commercial and environmental viability of solar-integrated tea farming, it said.
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