Wind power India: Government launches scheme for wind power project

The scheme will encourage competitiveness through scaling up of project sizes and introduction of efficient and transparent e-bidding and e-auctioning processes.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has launched a scheme for setting up a 1,000 MW wind power project connected to the transmission network of Central Transmission Utility (CTU) with an objective to facilitate the supply of wind power to the non-windy states at a price discovered through transparent bidding process. The Ministry has designated the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) as a nodal agency for implementation of the scheme.

The scheme will encourage competitiveness through scaling up of project sizes and introduction of efficient and transparent e-bidding and e-auctioning processes. It will also facilitate fulfilment of Non-Solar Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) requirement of non-windy states.

The Government of India (GoI) has set an ambitious target of achieving 175 GW power capacity from renewable energy resources by 2022 and out of this 60 GW has to come from wind power. The scheme will be implemented for setting up 1,000 MW capacity of CTU connected wind power projects by wind project developers on build, own and operate basis. However, the capacity may go higher than 1,000 MW, if there is a higher demand from non-windy states.

MNRE has also issued draft guidelines for implementation of the scheme for setting up of 1,000 MW CTU connected wind power projects issued by MNRE for stakeholders’ consultation.

Background

The wind power deployment in the country started in early nineties. With the conductive policy environment provided at the central and state level, this segment has achieved the highest growth amongst the other renewable energy technologies. The present wind power installed capacity in the country is nearly 26.7 GW sharing around 9 per cent of the total installed capacity. Globally, India is at the fourth position in terms of wind power installed capacity after China, USA and Germany.

The wind power potential in the country is assessed by the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) at 100 meter above ground level, which is estimated to be over 302 GW. Most of this potential exists in eight windy states namely Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

In order to facilitate transmission of wind power from these windy states to non-windy states, provisions have been made in the tariff policy to waive the inter-state transmission charges and losses for wind power projects.

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