We’re in the middle of the irrigation season, with the water we thankfully already have, and we must acknowledge the tremendous growth this sector has experienced in recent years. The success of solar photovoltaic irrigation and pumping systems is due to several reasons, but economics is perhaps the most important when choosing this system.

If we compare it with a grid electricity supply, it is certainly not a bad option, but the fact that one has to pay power fees all year round (which are sometimes very high), makes this option more popular, since solar photovoltaic irrigation or pumping systems, once installed and running, require practically no maintenance and have a very long useful life, since the elements they are made of do not wear out much, and we can calculate the useful life of a solar photovoltaic pumping or irrigation system at about 20 years, at the end of which, what will surely have to be replaced is only the pump and the inverter, because the rest: plates, structures, wiring, control and communication systems, etc., will be perfectly operational after this period, so this revamping will be quick and economical.

If we compare the replacement of pumping systems with combustion engines, whether using motor pumps or generator sets connected to an electric pump, the comparison is stark, as the savings will allow us to amortize the solar photovoltaic irrigation system in about three seasons, as we mentioned: without maintenance, noise, or fumes, and without having to refill the fuel tank every few months. It’s a system that works perfectly, is robust, reliable (if properly sized), and above all, it’s a system that will save us a lot of time and money.

This facility, located in the province of Huesca, supplies water to a pig farm, in addition to transferring water from one reservoir to another and performing some minor irrigation. Most importantly, its monitoring allows us to know at all times what it’s doing, if there’s been a problem, and any other information that may be of interest to us. Thus, this solar photovoltaic pumping and irrigation system is providing daily savings and convenience to the farm’s owners and employees, something they wouldn’t be able to achieve with any other proposed system.

• • 67 450Wp panels
  • SolarBloc structure for flat surfaces without driving.
  • 15kW 20Hp three-phase pump.
  • 15 kW automatic frequency converter
  • Isolated electrical storage and distribution system for managing automatic irrigation and solar pumping systems