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Landscape Study of Decentralized Cold Storages in India and Assessment of Deployed Decentralized Agri Cold Storages
Landscape Study of Decentralized Cold Storages in India and Assessment of Deployed Decentralized Agri Cold Storages
- India
SELCO Foundation is an open-source, not-for-profit organization that engages in field-based R&D and ecosystem building to deploy clean energy solutions that alleviate poverty in tribal, rural, and urban poor areas. The organization works closely with practitioners in the social sector, energy entrepreneurs, and partners from various developmental sectors.
Context Indian farmers incur a loss of INR 92,651 (1) crore per year in post-harvest losses alone, the primary cause of which is poor storage and transportation facilities. Other issues include limited technical know-how on good agricultural practices, lack of market knowledge, and inadequate market access. In the absence of proper storage facilities, farmers of perishable commodities such as fruits and vegetables have been rendered devoid of their livelihoods in both the immediate and the long term.
The DRE-based cold storage units at the farm level can help reduce post-harvest agricultural losses, improve farmer profits, and provide climate co-benefits. Powered by renewable energy like solar PV or biomass, these solutions can reduce reliance on diesel, overcome grid reliability issues, and be made available in geographies where grid infrastructure is still non-existent. But the high upfront capital expenditure associated with DRE-based cold storage facilities has constrained adoption, hence restricting the market scale of these solutions. There is a recognized need to pilot different types of business models which can improve the affordability of these solutions for different categories of end users, primarily individual farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), and other grass-roots community-led organizations.
Within the agriculture vertical at SELCO Foundation, decentralized agri-cooling has emerged as one of the primary priorities for the organization in terms of building replicable and scalable models across different geographies. SELCO Foundation with its technology partners has deployed solar power cold storage at 62 locations. These are designed to store fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, processed food, and other perishable commodities. A small-scale solar-powered cold room enables pre-cooling and storage of perishable - thereby helping preserve their freshness and maximizing their shelf life. The system is a solar standalone operation and consists of a solar + DG/Grid hybrid operation. The smart control system helps maintain the temperature, humidity, and air quality parameters precisely as per the product requirement. It consists of a battery-less compressor operation (small battery for auxiliary loads and control system) and a thermal backup due to the PCM plates (24-30 hours). It is a completely portable unit and has very minimal maintenance. So far SF has deployed approximately 69 solar-powered cold storage across 11 states of India. The first cold storage was deployed in the year 2018. Most of the cold storage was adopted by FPOs or cooperatives. The size of the cold storage varies from 2 MT to 30 MT.
Essential Qualification of the Consultant The agency should have a qualified, skilled, and experienced team to carry out various activities as mentioned above:
The agency should have a minimum of 5 years of experience in conducting research/ study/ evaluation/ monitoring and proven and relevant expertise in renewable energy, solar energy, agriculture, agri- enterprise, horticulture, Agri-cooling system, etc The agency team should have experience in designing and managing program evaluation, landscape research studies, and implementation research. Demonstrated expertise in research, evaluation, and monitoring skills is required, including developing complex and large-scale evaluation/research/monitoring designs, and methodology. The agency should have skilled persons with proven expertise in research, impact evaluation, and core thematic areas of agri cooling, value chain A pan-India presence and proven track record of on-time performance on assignments of similar scale. The agency should have successfully executed at least 5 multi-state research/ study/ evaluation/ monitoring activities in the past 5 years. The agency should have a track record of an effective system for internal quality assurance and ethical review. At least three client references and contact information should be provided. The references should be limited to work done within the past five years and specific to India in relevant fields. Proposal The proposal needs to include CVs of key personnel, organizational credentials, data collection capabilities in specified geographies, and detailed costing. Please include a Gantt chart showing timelines and dependencies as well. The proposal should include the following elements:
A. Cover page
B. Technical Proposal for Objective 1 + Objective 2
a. Agency profile (Same for both objectives) b. Evaluation approach, methodology, and Sample size (Separate for both objectives) c. Team and person-days d. Tentative timeline of activities (Separate for both objectives) e. Resumes of team leader and team members f. Short descriptions of other relevant projects done C. Financial Proposal
The agency is requested to send a joint proposal for both objectives 1 and 2 – with a break up of activities as per each objectiveThis page belongs to the Job Offers database.
