Lalima answered as she leaned forward at the dinner table.

“I read somewhere that in coastal regions, tidal energy can be harnessed to power desalination systems with reverse osmosis (RO) via a hydraulic turbine. When compared with a conventional RO system, the system driven by tidal energy can save water costs in the order of 31%-42% (Gorjian, Fakhraei, Gorjian, Sharafkhani, & Aziznejad, 2022). This water can be used in various agricultural processes.

When it comes to food processing, as an example, to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels for paddy drying, a study piloted a biomass-based mixed-flow drying system. The thermal energy required to heat the drying air was provided solely by biomass. The experiment showed that the moisture content of the paddy reduced from 20.90 to 13.30% and the consumed energy from biomass was about 47.8% of the total energy. That is a significant offset in the use of fossil fuels. Alternative to biomass, different types of low-cost solar dryers can be used to dry agricultural products (Gorjian, Fakhraei, Gorjian, Sharafkhani, & Aziznejad, 2022).

Finally, for various types of machinery used in farms, solar-powered electric equipment such as electric tractors, and field robots can be used. However, two main barriers against the global deployment of solar-powered electric agricultural machinery are their high initial cost and sensitivity to environmental parameters such as dust accumulation, shadowing, etc. With rapid advancements in technology, the barriers will also be overcome in the future (Gorjian, Fakhraei, Gorjian, Sharafkhani, & Aziznejad, 2022).”

“That’s right. You are beginning to see the importance and abundant opportunities of renewable energy across sectors and value chains. You will begin to see that where there is an energy demand, there is an opportunity for renewables to cater to that demand. Going back, we may take the references of all your business ventures in knowing how MSMEs benefit from the transition to renewables. For example, Aabroo’s construction business can use renewable technologies like the utilization of geothermal energy for the maintenance of room temperature in buildings. Baisali’s business can make use of solar-powered aquaculture facilities to power water pumps, aeration systems, and other electrical equipment in fish farms and hatcheries. Talking about water pumps, your father also showed his interest in integrating solar to power water pumps. Then, of course, Kishor can support his customers to adopt agrivoltaics in farm operations to power machinery, grain drying, or water pumping.”