India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) unveiled medium and long-term targets for the country’s offshore wind energy of 5GW by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030, respectively, as part of overall efforts to boost national renewable energy sector.
The Ministry recently invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the first 1 GW offshore wind project in India, which has evoked keen response from the industry both global and Indian, according to an official statement by the government of India. To give further confidence to the wind industry, the Ministry has now declared the new targets.
While this may look moderate in comparison to India’s on-shore wind target of 60 GW and its achievement of 34 GW and solar target of 100 GW by 2022, this would still be challenging considering the difficulties in installing large wind power turbines in open seas. It may be mentioned that offshore wind turbines are of much larger dimensions and capacities than onshore turbines.
MNRE had notified National Offshore Wind Policy in October 2015 to realize the offshore wind power potential in the country. Preliminary studies have indicated good wind potential for offshore wind power both in southern tip of Indian peninsula and west coast. Two regions where preliminary studies are conducted are off coast of Gujarat and that of Tamil Nadu.
For precise wind quality measurements one LiDAR has been installed near Gujarat coast which is generating data about quality of off-shore wind since November, 2017.
Encouraged by quality of off-shore wind, a private sector player has also installed LiDAR in Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat for offshore wind resource measurements.
Plans are afoot to install more of such equipment in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Surveys to understand the oceanographic and sea bed condition within identified zones off the coast of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have been planned.
Globally there has been installation of about 17 to 18 GW of offshore wind power led by countries such as UK, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & China. Recent years have witnessed fall in offshore wind tariff in some of these markets.
