Wind Energy in India – Reaching New Heights Each Day

Wind energy is the usage of turbines to create energy. Wind power is a sought-after, reliable, inexhaustible energy source that has considerably less impact on the environment than using fossil fuels. Wind farms contain several wind turbines interconnected in the electrical transmission network.

During the 1980s, the Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources (DNES) was formed to reduce India’s dependency on conventional energy sources such as coal and oil. In 1992, the DNES became the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES), and in 2006 was renamed the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE).

Wind energy in India

Wind energy can be described as the kinetic energy of air in motion, known as wind. 

Sustainable energy development in India is humongous, and wind energy demonstrates the most responsive resolution to depleting non-renewable fuels, greenhouse gases, and pollution problems. As a sustainable, eco-friendly, and cost-efficient source, wind energy helps us dodge the dependence on fuel and transport that will lead to green and clean energy.

For a logged limit of 39248 MV of wind energy (as of March 2021), sustainable energy sources now account for 24.7% of the available power capacity of 382151 MW. Wind energy has most of the 41.5% of total RE capacity among the sustainable energies.

The Indian government has an ambitious target of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, with wind power accounting for 60GW. The potential of wind in India was primarily evaluated by the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) at 50 metres hub-height, i.e., 49 GW. According to a study at 80 metres hub-height, the limit grows as much as 102 GW and 302 GW at 100 metres hub height. The latest calculations by NIWE at 120 metres show an evaluated potential of 694GW.

One of the big positives of wind energy is its potential to help rural employment and bring up the rural economy. In the coming years, the prospect of wind energy in India is very high, given the focus on energy production and self-sufficiency. The biggest advantages of wind energy are its cost efficiency and low carbon dioxide emissions.

Growth of wind energy production in India

The pandemic slowed down the growth of wind energy production in India. Many policies designed to reduce bottlenecks took a significant hit, resulting in the industry experiencing an unexpected slowdown. However, new reports suggest that the wind energy industry has weathered the storm and is on the rise once again.

India is projected to add 20.2 gigawatts of wind energy in the current year. This would result in India’s total output becoming 39.2 gigawatts – almost a 50% jump. The speed of installation of wind energy harvesting structures is at an unprecedented high and has nearly doubled compared to the slow years. 

The addition of new projects is also fine-tuned to bolster India’s wind energy production capacity further. With almost 10.3 GW worth of projects in the pipeline from central and state tenders, wind energy is quickly becoming the prime alternative energy source for India.

Coastal and altitude landscapes for wind energy

India has a very high magnitude of untapped wind energy in its coastal areas. From Gujarat to Tamil Nadu, India has a very long coastal line from which to harvest a lot of wind energy easily. The untapped potential wind energy in India from the coastal regions is 140 gigawatts

Projects are still in the planning phase since implementation costs are very high. There is also an absence of infrastructure to ferry the energy generated from offshore coastal plants to the distribution centres.

There has been considerable resistance to onshore coastal plants since they take up a lot of empty land and cause stress to local communities. Another solution to this is high-altitude wind harvesters. But these projects, too, have massive production costs since they require more durable and costlier products.

High altitude wind harvesters have a steady energy production since there is a constant speed of wind current at higher altitudes, allowing for better energy harvesting. However, constraints to such projects include high set-up costs and complex infrastructure.

Conclusion

Wind energy is the usage of turbines to create energy. Wind power is a sought-after, reliable, inexhaustible energy source that has considerably less impact on the environment than using fossil fuels.

During the 1980s, the Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources (DNES) was formed to reduce India’s dependency on conventional energy sources. The DNES became the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) and was subsequently renamed the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE).

India is projected to add 20.2 gigawatts of wind energy in the current year, resulting in a 50% increase to a total output of 39.2 gigawatts.