India, March 2 -- When people talk about India's climate, they often talk about big solar farms in the Thar Desert or big gigawatt announcements in Gujarat. But the biggest change in energy use might be happening quietly in India's villages, next to borewells, tube wells, and dusty transformer sheds.

The PM-KUSUM project, which started in 2019, is more than just about solar power. It is an effort to change the political economy of Indian agriculture by turning farmers from energy consumers into energy producers. The question is whether it works.

The reasoning behind the plan

For decades, India's agricultural electricity has been a financial black hole. States give farmers free or heavily subsidised electricity, which is a politically s...