Wind mills stopped functioning
Most of the wind mills in the State stopped functioning since Friday night hitting wind energy generation in the peak windy season, according to the vice-president of the Indian Wind Power Association, K. Kasthurirangaian.He said in a release here on Saturday that it was learnt that the windmills had been cut off from the grid since the frequency of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) grid was exceeding 50.3 cycles during the last two days (this was an indication that the total power generation in the State was more than the distributed load).The State had an installed windmill capacity of 3400 MW and this was the season for the mills to work on full capacity due to the high wind velocity. Winds were blowing at 12 to 30 metres a second, thus enabling 100 per cent energy generation, he said.The total investments that had gone into the windmills in the State were about Rs. 17,500 crore and stopping the mills in the windy season would lead to severe loss to the investors, he said.“Wind power can be generated only during the season which is a period of five to six months in a year.”Mr. Kasthurirangaian appealed to the TNEB to take steps immediately to continue wind energy generation and to operate the thermal and hydro units to the bare minimum level required during the peak windy season.The board should explore the possibility of selling the surplus energy to the neighbouring States or to the Power Trading Corporation of India. He appealed to the board “to help the wind industry by providing full evacuation of their wind energy generation during the peak wind season.”
