Wind Energy - Advantages, Wind Farms, Facts about Wind Energy

Wind energy is a clean energy source that is one of the most competitive energy sources in markets across the world. It is one of the key technologies that can help to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

It can help the world reach its net zero emissions target. Wind power costs are continuously decreasing across the globe.

Global Wind Energy is celebrated every year on 15 June.

Wind Energy can be harnessed through onshore wind farms- large installations of wind turbines on land, and offshore wind farms- installations of wind turbines in water bodies.

According to Global Wind Report 2022, 93.6 gigawatts of wind capacity have been installed in 2021, less than the 95.3 GW installed in 2020. India added 1.45 GW of wind capacity in 2021.

Some Facts about Wind Farms in India and World

World’s largest onshore wind farm is Gansu Wind Farm (also called Jiuquan Wind Power Base- 20GW target capacity) in China located on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert followed by Alta (USA).
World’s biggest offshore wind farm is Hornsea 2 located 89 km off the UK’s east coast.
Dogger Bank Wind Farm (Northeast coast of England) when completed will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm.
Largest operational onshore wind farm in India is Muppandal Wind Farm in Tamil Nadu followed by Jaisalmer Wind Park (Rajasthan) and Brahmanvel Wind Farm (Dhule, Maharashtra).

Wind Energy Capacity in India

The government of India has set a target to achieve 175 GW of installed capacity by 2022 from renewable energy sources. Out of which 60 GW will be wind power capacity.

As of 30 May 2022, the total installed wind power capacity was 40.53 GW. This is the fourth largest installed wind power capacity in the world.

As of 31 March 2021, Tamil Nadu tops the list of largest installed wind power generation capacity followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Rajasthan.

The recent assessment done by NIWE indicates a gross wind power potential of 302 GW in the country at 100 meter and 695.50 GW at 120 meter above ground level in seven windy states- Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh. National Institute of Wind Energy is located in Chennai.

In October 2015, the government issued “National offshore wind energy policy”. As per the policy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will act as the nodal Ministry for development of Offshore Wind Energy in India and work in close coordination with other government entities for Development and Use of Maritime Space within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the country. The Ministry has set a target of 5.0 GW of offshore wind installations by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030 which has been issued to give confidence to the project developers in India market.

Facilitating Offshore Wind Energy in India (FOWIND) is a project by a consortium led by Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and supported by European Union (EU) to assist India on its offshore wind power development. It is implemented from December 2013 to March 2018.

First Offshore Wind Power project in India (FOWPI) is another project getting implemented from December 2015 by a consortium led by COWI and supported by EU to provide assistance up to the stage of Pre-Financial-Investment-Decision (Pre-FiT) and provide general assistance for capacity building of Indian stakeholders within offshore wind sector.

The first offshore wind energy project of 1.0 GW capacity was planned in the identified zone-B off the coast of Gujarat.