Does India Really Need Offshore Wind

India is Wasting Money On Expensive European Technology

India has made a new offshore wind energy policy which aims at having a working offshore wind farm in the next 5 years. The country has also appointed European consultants for wind resource assessment and developing a plan for offshore wind potential. In my view, offshore wind energy is a useless technology from the Indian perspective. Not only is it expensive but also involves importing most of the technology which will cause a huge drain on India’s exchequer. Offshore wind energy is almost 4-5 times more expensive than solar PV in India. This will further increase over the next 5 years as solar costs decline at a much faster pace than offshore wind energy.

Offshore wind energy is a niche that is being developed by rich European countries who have the money and the technology to waste on a new RE form. India does not have that kind of money and it already has a much cheaper alternative.  Only 2 states Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have a large potential and coastline to make offshore wind farms. These states are already power surplus in both solar and wind energy. Building more renewable energy in these areas do not make sense as it will require further investments in moving renewable energy from far off places to the main demand centers.

Also read about Major Wind Companies in India.

India does not have any technology or experience in making such high tech wind turbines. Suzlon and Inox which are the two largest players cannot make these products and are a huge disadvantage as compared to the established wind turbine makers such as Vestas, Siemens and Senvion. China and USA have also made only tiny steps into offshore wind energy realizing the fact that it is just too expensive.

India had made a mistake by subsidizing two three expensive solar thermal power plants which are now white elephants guzzling taxpayer’s money. If India had been smarter then a huge amount of money running into millions of dollars could have been saved. India has to be smart about the energy choices it makes. Offshore wind will not help in balancing of intermittent solar power and in fact will require additional balancing resources. In my view, India should just not move ahead with offshore wind till it is a mature technology with low costs.

India will get electricity generated by wind-propelled plants installed in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu in about five years as a part of the country’s green energy development program, an energy expert has said.

An FOWIND consortium has done a series of report on wind conditions for wind-generated electricity and its integration into a grid along the coastlines of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. FOWIND is supported by Euro four million grant from the Indo-European Cooperation on Renewable Energy program and Euro 500,000 contribution through the Gujarat Power Corp Ltd (GPCL). The consortium, Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), comprises GPCL, DNV GL, the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), and the World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE).

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