Chennai Wind power installations in the current financial year are expected to be at an all-time high. Installations in 2024-25 will be 6.5-7 GW, compared with 3.2 GW last year, Lalit Bohra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said here today.
“Wind is seeing tremendous growth,” Bohra said, speaking at a Global Wind Day event organised here by the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association (IWTMA).
The most the wind industry put up in India in any year so far has been 5,400 MW in 2016-17, when the industry rushed to complete projects to catch some expiring incentives.
Bohra pointed out that India today has over 46 GW of wind capacity and said the number would increase fast in the coming years. (Speaking at the event, Ishwar Chand Mangal, CEO- New Business, Suzlon, noted that India had come a long way, from just 38 MW in 1996 to 46 GW today.)
The focus of the meeting was the tendering for offshore wind capacity. Bohra said the first tender with government’s viability gap funding (VGF) support could be out as early as September – for 500 MW of capacity near Gujarat.
In February, the MNRE issued a tender for seabed allocation for a sea area big enough to accommodate 4 GW of offshore wind capacity. The bids are to be opened in July, after the new government takes over.
Rajesh Katyal, Director General, National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), the nodal agency for offshore, said that NIWE has set up three LiDARs (instruments that can measure wind speeds) at three locations – two at the Tuticorin port and one at nearby Udangudi. The data from the LiDARs show that the region has wind speeds of 9.5-10 meters per second for 7-8 months in a year.
