India has featured as one of the world’s top five countries for wind power development for years. Will new policy initiatives open up India’s wind sector?byJackie Jones, Consulting EditorPublished: 2010-05-26
London, UK –Until China’s wind sector started its turbocharged acceleration three or four years ago, India had been the clear leader in wind in Asia and amongst developing countries. A wind pioneer, year after year it has ranked in the top five nations in terms of new installations. India added a respectable 1576 MW during the financial year ending 31 March 2010 (compared with 1917 MW added in Germany and 2459 MW in Spain), bringing total wind capacity to 11,758.43 MW. It is currently in fifth place globally in terms of total installed capacity. The leading state is Tamil Nadu, in the south, which boasts an outstanding level of resource and currently yields about half of India’s wind production (see Tables 1 and 2 below), as well as dominating new installations.
India’s current (11th) Five-Year Economic Plan ends in March 2012, and includes a target of 9000 MW of new wind installations. India’s Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Dr Farooq Abdullah, told the Lok Sabha (elected house) that 3847 MW had been installed between the launch of the Plan and end of January 2010. Market analysts predict cumulative capacity in the region of 24–25.5 GW by 2013 (BTM, March 2009) or 2015 (MAKE, March 2010).
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