Electric fence or wire fence: which suits your farm?

What an electric fence does

An electric fence is a few plain wires on insulators, connected to an energiser, the box farmers call a jhatka machine. The energiser sends a short pulse of high voltage down the wires, about once a second, not a steady current. An animal that touches a wire gets a sharp shock and learns to keep away. The fence works on the animal’s memory, not on the wires’ strength.

On a farm the power usually comes from the sun, which is why it is sold as “solar fencing”. The government’s field manual on power fences lists five parts. They are a solar panel, a 12 V battery, a charge controller that protects the battery, the energiser, and a lightning diverter between the energiser and the fence.

The Indian Standard for energisers, IS 302 (Part 2/Sec 76), limits what one may put out. That is at most one pulse a second and at most 10,000 V, each pulse lasting no more than 0.1 second. A medium power energiser may put no more than 5 joules into each pulse. Since the Electric Fence Energizers (Quality Control) Order, 2024, an energiser sold in India must carry the BIS mark.

What a physical wire fence does

A physical wire fence stops an animal with the fence itself. It needs no power, and it works the same at night, in the rain and when the battery is flat. What matters is how strong the wire is, how its crossings are held, and how high it stands.

SIMO Securon’s Q-Knot™ fixed knot fence is high tensile wire of 1150 to 1300 MPa in Alpha and Zeta Nova, locked at every crossing by a separate knot wire. Its line wires are closest at the bottom, where wild boar push, and it stays tight with posts 5 to 6 metres apart. Against nilgai (blue bull) and cattle, a fence needs to be at least 6 ft high.

Electric fence vs wire fence, side by side

Upkeep: what an electric fence needs every day

An electric fence only works while the pulse reaches the end of the line. The field manual’s schedule:

• Every day: check the power supply and the earthing, including the battery and the voltage at different points along the fence.
• At least twice a month: clear grass and plants that touch the wires, more often on a fence with many wires. Wet plants on a wire drain the pulse away.
• Every month: clean the solar panel, and check the connections for rust.
• Earthing: at least three metal rods driven at least 1 metre into moist ground, away from other earthing.

The manual also says to build a power fence only where someone is there to look after it, such as a village committee. When Kerala’s forest solar fences were audited, the CAG found nearly a third of the fences checked in three divisions not working, and plants left uncleared under the wires.

Safety and the rules for electric fences in India

• Never connect a fence to the mains. Battery energisers are marked “WARNING - Do not connect to mains-operated equipment”. Tapping a power line is an offence under section 135 of the Electricity Act, 2003, with up to three years in prison, a fine, or both. In 2023 the Orissa High Court told power companies to cut the illegally hooked connections that power such fences, and to offer farmers 6 V solar fencing instead.
• Never use barbed wire on a power fence, the field manual says: it can hold a person or an animal against the wire.
• Illegal power fences kill. The field manual warns that they kill elephants, other wildlife and people, and invite prosecution. The Wild Life (Protection) Act counts killing a protected wild animal as hunting, which it prohibits. The CAG recorded 223 wild animals electrocuted by electric fences in Kerala from 2017 to 2022.
• Permission. Some states require permission before you put up an electric fence: in Kerala, the Electrical Inspectorate’s permission is needed to install and run one. Ask your agriculture or forest officer what your state asks for.

Some states also pay part of the cost of a solar fence or a wire fence. See farm fencing subsidy (tarbandi yojana), state by state.

When each one suits a farm

• An electric fence suits a farm where someone can check it every day, the ground is moist enough to earth it, and the animal can be taught to keep away. The field manual was written for keeping elephants out of crops.
• A physical wire fence suits a farm where nobody can check a fence every day, or where the ground is rocky, marshy or uneven. On such ground, the field manual says, electric fences are hard to build and keep working. It also suits a farm where nilgai, wild boar and cattle need a barrier rather than a warning.

SIMO Securon does not sell electric fences

SIMO Securon makes physical wire fences in Nagpur: the Q-Knot™ fixed knot fence for animals, RTHT™ high tensile barbed wire and chain link, with their posts and fittings. It does not sell electric fences, energisers or solar fencing kits, and it gives no advice on wiring one.

To see what a physical fence takes for your land, the posts, rolls and a price range, use the fencing cost estimator. For the animals themselves, see the wildlife fencing guide and farm fencing.