What is Feeder Separation and why should we care?

We recently published the first rigorous impact evaluation of Feeder Separation (FS) projects in the prestigious Energy Policy (DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112427) Feeder separation is one of the power sector reforms that have been going on in India since 2006 and has been a key part of the current Government’s Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana since 2014. Here is a summary of our key findings, which broadly shows that feeder separation delivers better power, reduces dependence on more polluting diesel, and saves irrigation water resources without affecting crop yields

Free or highly subsidized power for farm irrigation has been a cornerstone of India’s agricultural policy since the 1970s. Such (near) zero-price power supply has led to excessive groundwater exploitation across India. For example, most of the critical groundwater blocks are in the nine states with high prevalence of tube wells and free power supply.

To limit the exploitation of groundwater and reduce subsidy bills to the exchequer, distribution companies (DISCOMs) ration 3-phase power supply to farmers and try 24×7 1-phase supply to other customers. However, it is fairly easy to rig the system and run irrigation pumps on 1-phase supplies which leads to power theft. So, DISCOMs trip the supply several times a day which leads to the entire distribution network getting erratic loads, and ultimately keeps failing. Overall, paying customers also have to suffer limited supply and that too in 1-phase, which is not enough to operate heavy equipment. Everyone suffers from poor voltage and irregular supply. Therefore, the overall economic well-being of DISCOMs and rural India is compromised.

An ideal solution to the above scenario would be to put an electric meter for all farmers and charge them the market price and then give fixed subsidies to farmers. However, with the current complexities around ‘power-politics’, feeder separation was developed as a viable next-best solution to address the ongoing challenge of preventing theft and giving reliable power to farm and non-farm consumers.

In feeder separation, a dedicated feeder supplies 8-10 hours of 3-phase power to farmers and is completely offline otherwise while other feeders serve continuous-power to non-farmers (for domestic use). The feeder separation projects usually are clubbed with overall upgradation of the distribution network, metering and billing and technology for curtailing power thefts.

Common sense would tell us that feeder separation will help DISCOMs reduce their technical and commercial losses, but what about the end consumers? Are the hypothesized benefits of better power actually realized and how does that help the farmers and non-farmer households? Does effective rationing also mean less irrigation and saving groundwater resources? Or does it mean adversely affecting crop yields? So far there is limited evidence to answer these questions — despite billions of dollars of investment in feeder separation in India.

NEERMAN recently published robust evidence that feeder separation can, indeed, benefit farm and non-farm consumers because of service quality improvements that go beyond just the duration or quantity of supply. Below are a few key results from our study:

1. The proportion of households with ‘official’ grid connections increased by 15.3% and proportion of households that used kerosene as the main source of light reduced by 5.6%.
2. The diesel-energy consumption by farmers served by separated feeders was 240-kilowatt hour less than that consumed by farmers on mixed-use feeders (691-kilowatt hour) for Kharif and Rabi seasons together.
3. The net annual irrigation by farmers served by separated feeders was 12% lower than that by farmers served by mixed-use feeders but the crop yield remained unaffected.
4. The reduction in irrigation is mostly by reducing use of diesel pumps which suggests that diesel-pumps are not only more polluting and expensive, but also an important source of “excessive irrigation” compared to grid power.

Our study has three key messages for future policy discourse on feeder separation schemes specifically, and power sector reforms in general.
● First, continued engineering and managerial improvements are needed under the feeder separation schemes over a longer duration to maximize the benefits to the customers.
● Second, regularity and quality of supply deliver impacts beyond the typical focus on duration of supply. Such improvements can thus be pursued elsewhere even without feeder separation projects by upgrading the distribution network and maintenance and creating excess capacity with additional feeders.
● Third, farmers should be willing to pay for more convenient, regular, and cleaner grid-power instead of diesel so some economic solution of charging farmers for power supply beyond a ‘reasonable free quota’ can be viable.
We hope that the evidence through this study gives confidence to low- and middle-income countries such as India to pursue techno-economic solutions that can be win-win for all stakeholders including the environment, the climate, and the water resources.

The full paper can be accessed at https://lnkd.in/dqEF6EW, or email us at info@neerman.org to get a PDF.

We thank ADB which not only supported the feeder separation projects in Madhya Pradesh, but also had the foresight to commission an impact evaluation. Madhya Pradesh Central DISCOM also helped us with permissions and data for sampling