Capacity additions of wind power on declining trend

After reaching a peak growth of 1742 MW during 2006-07, the annual capacity additions of wind power in India have been declining in the last two years, K Kastoorirangaian, newly elected Chairman of Indian Wind Power Association said.The installed capacity of wind power increased by 1499.6 MW during 2008-09, as against 1663.3 mw during 2007-08, pushing the country to the fifth place in the world in terms of installed capacity, Mr. Kastoorirangaian told PTI here.

The cumulative installed capacity of the wind power in India stood at 10256.8 MW at the end of March 2009, he said.With more awareness spreading on climate change and the pressure being exerted by other countries to reduce the emission of green house gases, there was an urgent need to promote renewable enrgy in India, he said.

Attributing the unattractive tariff that was being offered for wind energy, which was not commensurate with the investment level required to the declining growth rate, he said that the rising cost of wind turbines in the recent past contributed to the trend.The cost of wind electric generators last year witnessed some sharp increase and it was explained that this was mainly due to the increasing cost of cement and steel. However, when the prices of steel came down subsequently, the cost of wind electric generator did not come down, he pointed out.

As a result the tariff fixed by various State Electricity Regulations became unviable and many investors decided to wait and watch, Mr. Kastoorirangaian said.

Globally, the installed capacity of windpower increased by 27,051 MW during 2008 (Calendar year) as compared to 19,685 MW in 2007 and the cumulative capacity of wind power at the end of December 2008 stood at 1,20,798 MW, he said.The highest annual additions to installed capacity during 2008 was witnessed in USA (8,358 MW) followed by China (6,300). Region wise, Europe continued to account for the highest share in the cumulative capacity (65,946 MW), followed by North America (27,542), Asia (24,368 MW), Pacific Region (1,644), Africa and the Middle East (669 MW).

It was further expected that with technology improving, the generation would improve and the per unit cost of generation would come down. But unfortunately, in many states, in India the infrastructure was not adequate to evacuate the wind power fully, he said.In some States, the distribution companies were reluctant to absorb more wind power since in their view a higher share of 'in-firm' power would affect the stability of the grid, he said. This resulted in possible loss of generation and increase in the per unit cost of generation.Once this happened, the investors return got affected and investments in wind electric generators became an unattractive proposition, Mr. Kastoorirangaian said.

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