Tidal Energy in India – Government Better Off Focusing Energy on other Green Sources

India has been trying to build tidal power plants in order to take advantage of around 8 GW of potential tidal wave power capacity potential in India.Note Gujarat has been at the forefront of these efforts with most of the tidal power capacity Gulf of Cambay and  Gulf of Kutch.While there have been reports of the go-ahead for these tidal energy plants,nothing concrete has come out of it .Note Tidal Energy is in a very immature stage compared to other forms of Renewable Energy like Solar,Wind and Biomass Energy.Tidal Energy like Wave Energy is still in the demo stage even in developed countries of the West where technology innovation is much higher.

MNRE the ministry in charge of promoting renewable energy in India has said that it will subsidies 50% of the cost of demo tidal energy plants.WBERDA wants to construct a 3.75 MW plant in the Sundarbans one of the biggest deltas in the world.I think the government would be much better of concentrating their efforts on something like Solar Energy which is in a much more advanced stage and has almost infinite potential.

India May Provide 50 Percent Financing for Tidal Energy Plants

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said it may provide financial incentives for as much as 50 percent of the cost for projects seeking to demonstrate how to produce electricity from ocean tides.

The ministry is considering providing the financial incentives to state agencies to develop tidal energy projects as technology demonstration projects, according to a written response to parliament by Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah.

India may have the potential to produce more than 8,000 megawatts of tidal power along its western coast, he said. A government study has found 7,000 megawatts of potential in the Gulf of Cambay and 1,200 megawatts in the Gulf of Kutch, both located in Gujarat state, he said.