Wind Energy

Wind Energy sector is repowering and replacing the first generation technology to modern multi megawatt wind turbines to yield notable conversion of wind power and offer better grid integeration.

Offshore commercial projects are now installted after several years of desk studies and wind farms can harness 70 to 100 % more frequent and powerful winds than are available to land based installations and have less visual impact on the landscape but construction costs are considerably higher.

Onshore wind power is not universally acceptable due to protest against setting up new commercial projects and to determine these effects the externalities of wind power generation were measured and would result in impeded expansion in this sector.

The installed capacity in the wind industry is just over 41,000 MW of new clean reliable wind power in 2011, bringing the total installed capacity globally to more than 240,000 MW at the end of last year and the expansion in this sector is inevitable.

Wind energy resources will contibute to India‘s quest for affordable clean form of energy and India is ranked 5th in the world in terms of wind power installed capacity of about 16000 MW in the year 2011 and has become major player in the global wind energy market.

India’s wind energy sector has further potential of growth and is far from exhausted and with the unexploited resources available the Indian wind energy will sustain in the years to come and has been estimated that with the current level of technology the on-shore potential for utilization of wind energy for electricity generation is of the order of 65000 MW.

Government policies alleviate rapid growth in this area and the availability of loans up to 70% of the total cost of the project, 80% depreciation in first year, zero import duty and tax holidays for new projects for 5 years are a few policies which are attracting new players in this sector.

It is projected that within next decade wind energy will constitute of more than 10% of the total energy production of India. Government of India is planning to infuse around Rs 60,000 crores in next five year plan in this industry, which will boost the growth of this sector and help reach the estimated installed capacity.