Energetica India - June 2020

WIND POWER Foison winds, foiling pursuits The wind sector till 2016-17 was essentially led by turbine manufacturers, where the key incentives were accel- erated depreciation and generation-based incentive. Following the success of a competitive bidding model in reducing solar tariffs, the same model brought about increased vigor in the wind sector initially which has seen some aggressive biddings. Wind tenders have seen a drastic drop in wind tariff to Rs 2.43 per unit, about Rs 2 to 3 lower than the prevailing FiT at the time. In 2015, India embarked on an ambitious journey of installing 175-GW of Renewable Energy (RE) by 2022, however, accord- ed a limited space of 60-GW to wind. At that point, the domes- tic wind industry had already matured, with an installed ca- pacity of 25-GW. Achieving the target required an unambitious annual addition of about 5-GW over next seven years. With 37-GW of installed capacity as of December 2019, India stands 4th in the world for wind capacity. Wind is the largest component within the total RE installations in India, with about 44% share(see Graph 1). Pratha Jhawar Deputy Programme Manager, Renewable Energy Programme, Centre for Science and Environment Wind is biggest sector within RE Graph1: Installed capacity in India by December 2019 (MW) Source: CEA According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), wind projects aggregating 13-GW are in pipeline and another 10-GW will be tendered in coming months. The sector, however, is losingsheen, where annual addition has now fallen from a peak of 5.5-GW in 2016-17 to less than 2-GW annual- ly in recent years(see Graph 2). In September 2019, aCRISIL researchestimatedwind installations to reach only 45-GW by March 2022. energetica INDIA- June_2020 45