Overview
India’s wind energy sector is led by indigenous wind
power industry and has shown consistent progress. The expansion of the wind
industry has resulted in a strong ecosystem, project operation capabilities and
manufacturing base of about 10,000 MW per annum. The country currently has the
fourth highest wind installed capacity in the world with total installed
capacity of 39.25 GW (as on 31st March 2021) and has generated
around 60.149 Billion Units during 2020-21.
The Government is promoting wind power projects
in entire country through private sector investment by providing various fiscal
and financial incentives such as Accelerated Depreciation benefit; concessional
custom duty exemption on certain components of wind electric generators.
Besides, Generation Based Incentive (GBI) Scheme was available for the wind
projects commissioned before 31 March 2017.
In addition to fiscal and other incentives as
stated above, following steps also have been taken to promote installation of
wind capacity in the country:
Ø Technical
support including wind resource assessment and identification of potential
sites through the National Institute of Wind Energy, Chennai.
Ø In
order to facilitate inter-state sale of wind power, the inter-state
transmission charges and losses have been waived off for wind and solar
projects to be commissioned by March, 2022.
Ø Issued
Guidelines for Tariff Based Competitive Bidding Process for Procurement of
Power from Grid Connected Wind Power Projects with an objective to provide a
framework for procurement of wind power through a transparent process of
bidding including standardization of the process and defining of roles and
responsibilities of various stakeholders. These Guidelines aim to enable the
Distribution Licensees to procure wind power at competitive rates in a cost
effective manner.
Potential of Wind Energy in India
Wind is an intermittent and site-specific resource of energy and therefore, an extensive Wind Resource Assessment is essential for the selection of potential sites. The Government, through National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), has installed over 800 wind-monitoring stations all over country and issued wind potential maps at 50m, 80m, 100m and 120m above ground level. The recent assessment indicates a gross wind power potential of 302 GW in the country at 100 meter and 695.50 GW at 120 meter above ground level. Most of this potential exists in seven windy States as given below:-
S. No. State Wind Potential at 100 m (GW) Wind Potential at 120 m (GW) 1 Gujarat 84.43 142.56 2 Rajasthan 18.77 127.75 3 Maharashtra 45.39 98.21 4 Tamil Nadu 33.79 68.75 5 Madhya Pradesh 10.48 15.40 6 Karnataka 55.85 124.15 7 Andhra Pradesh 44.22 74.90 Total 7 windy states 292.97 651.72 8 Others 9.28 43.78 Total 302.25 695.50
Offshore Wind
Introduction: India is blessed with a
coastline of about 7600 km surrounded by water on three sides and has good
prospects of harnessing offshore wind energy. Considering this, the Government
had notified the “National offshore wind energy
policy” as per the Gazette Notification dated 6th October
2015. As per the policy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will
act as the nodal Ministry...