Key Messages
-
Wind power is critical for India’s clean energy transition
-
Ecosystem wide interventions are needed at this stage to accelerate deployment
-
The industry is keen to work with the policymakers and regulators
Speech
I am delighted to be part of the launch of the report “Revitalizing Wind Growth To Power The Energy Transition- India Wind Energy Outlook 2026.”
I want to make three points today
One, wind power is absolutely critical to enabling India’s clean energy transition and energy security.
According to the IEA, to meet growth in electricity demand over the next twenty years, India will need to add a power system the size of the European Union to what it has now.
Our Hon’ble Prime Minister has committed to the goal of having 50% of India’s installed capacity to be from non-fossil fuel sources.
All other energy sources have limitations – solar is constrained by limited time availability, large hydro has environmental limitations, nuclear has long gestation periods and others like green hydrogen and battery storage will still rely on renewables to be ‘clean’.
Wind is the electricity supply sources that complements all of these and can help deliver 24*7 clean power availability, that is critical to phasing down of coal and gas based power generation. And India has a large wind resource available – 300 GW of onshore (at 100 m hub height) and 170 GW off-shore wind potential.
Two, ecosystem wide interventions are needed at this stage to accelerate deployment
India had a great start to the wind journey, and we were all fortunate to be a part of it.
But inspite of the high potential of the wind industry installations have slowed down in India.
Against our anticipated 2.3 GW of installations for the past FY 21, we managed to get only 1.45 GW of installations.
Project activity was impacted by delays, due to the second wave of COVID-19 and supply chain-related disruptions owing to the Ukraine Russia Conflict.
At ReNew, we have directly experienced that even the installed capacity is not producing as much as it should, due to lower than normal wind speeds over the last two years.
The Government has been supportive and we are very grateful for that.
The industry particularly found very useful and exciting the wind/solar hybrid tenders, the waiver of the ISTS charges, the new Green Energy Open Access Rules, the new RPO trajectories for states.
The blanket extension granted by the MNRE for 7.5 half months after scheduled commissioning date (SCD) for projects with power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed before June 2021 is also highly appreciated.
But, there are systemic issues that persist – that we need to address more widely.
Important among them are
- visibility of targets and procurement pipelines. So far, we only had the target of 60 GW of wind
out the 175 GW of renewables by 2022. - Successful closure of more tenders and PPAs
- Regulatory support – for e.g. to repower old turbines; facilitate open access arrangements to
deliver on Corporate PPAs
We must also look beyond the expansion of onshore wind energy.
The Government’s aim 37 GW of Offshore Wind capacity addition by 2030 is very welcome.
We must also look at incentivizing use of wind energy for energy storage, fueling electric vehicles, as well as in the production of green hydrogen
This report looks at some of these aspects and therefore, in my opinion, is a very timely.
Finally, I want to assure that the industry, through the GWEC, remains keen to continue work with the policy makers and regulators to implement supportive interventions.
