RE is looking at indigenous solution for Wind power 

Wind power sector in India is facing challenges on various front one of which is for repowering, that is only possible if the grid is capable of taking in-extra power. 

The wind power market had a mixed trend in the past few years. The average installation over the last five years has been 2.48 GW. “Wind power capacity installation in FY 2020-21 was just 1.5 GW. Between April and July 2021, a total of 341.800 MW has been installed. 

Growth trends 

Given that the wind energy has been around in India for over three decades now, there is no dearth when it comes to availability and choice of machinery and equipment. An added advantage is that such machinery and equipment conform to IEGC standards and are made in India. Hence, the wind industry is not affected much by evolving international trade policies and foreign exchange fluctuations.

Opportunities and Challenges in wind power 

There are numerous opportunities, but the fact is that when you have to think for RE industry, the electrical industry and the electronics industry, all of them get benefit from it. There’s not just one industry that is quickly benefiting all of this. Even transmission infrastructure leaves much to be desired. Recently, the government of Tamil Nadu had come up with this thing for repowering. What they have very cleverly stated is that repowering can take place only if the grid is capable of taking in extra power which means, there is going to be no addition over there.  

Challenges

 In spite of the current growth trend in the market, wind power sector in India is facing challenges on various fronts. Some major bottlenecks remains to be the same. 

• • • The Centre going ahead with SECI auctions for wind without assessing preparedness of states. This has resulted in severe project overruns, and in some cases, has also led to the financial viability of the project itself being in doubt.

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    • Delays in the execution of PPAs and PSAs
• • Payment delays by DISCOMs
• • Not honouring PPA terms
  • Curtailment for reasons not connected with grid safety

Challenges in constructing a responsive and dependable grid with RE 

According to Ajay Devaraj, Secretary General, Indian Wind Power Association, “The key problems are the lack of cost-effective and dependable storage solutions, as well as legislative and technological support for isolated and grid-interactive distributed systems. Some of the issues raised by increased RE penetration have been obvious for at least the last 5–6 years. While DISCOMs in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka have found methods to address the problem front on, other RE-rich states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan have done the exact opposite – they have resorted to large-scale and indiscriminate RE power curtailment. One solution is to expand the balancing region beyond state borders and place it at the Regional Load Despatch Centre level.

Renewable energy sector is expected to generate a plethora of appealing options 

In terms of offshore wind energy ambitions, India is considerably off the mark. Making PLI and tax breaks accessible for offshore wind might help to solve the issue of being off target. Offshore wind is now too expensive to install. These costs might be reduced or compensated by co-locating water desalination and green hydrogen facilities with offshore wind, or by pushing Power-X—power that is turned into and marketed as another end product.