Wind IPPs in India: Will they find enough land?

With the growing population and the consequent growing demand on fossil fuels, fossil fuels are becoming more and more scarce thereby witnessing a considerable increase in their cost.As a result, the power deficit poses as a global issue and the need to minimise it becomes almost inevitable. Renewable resources come to save the situation by working towards remedying the problem and thereby emerge Renewable Energy IPPs. Renewable Energy IPPs or the Independent Power Producers is an upcoming and lucrative market that works towards minimising the power deficit problem of India. Thus, private investors are actively contributing in the power generation sector as much as possible. Of them, a successfully emerging sector includes the wind IPP India. The wind sector initially developed as a private / SME market but then it witnessed a sharp fall in wind installations. Also, problems crept up due to the lowering of solar tariff. But due to the recent IRR increase of wind projects which is well over 15% and being backed up by state government policies, wind IPPs are witnessing a surge in their development and economy. 

Wind power is advantageous in a lot of ways – 

1. The PLF or Plant Load Factor is very high in case of wind power, more than that of solar power. 

2. Wind energy is available throughout the day as long as wind is there.

3. Wind energy driven power plants do not require water for running. 

4. The wind power plants are highly susceptible to wear and tear. 

Problems creep up while finding a proper location for the installation. The Wind Turbine Generators or WTG cannot be installed near townships as they produce a lot of noise and that can result in inconvenience. Hence open places away from townships make apt locations for WTG installations. So appropriate lands need to be procured along with the acquirement of the necessary permits and financing. 

Welspun Renewables is one of the leading wind IPP India, and also the various renewable energy projects undertaken by Welspun Renewables rank among the biggest power generating plants in India. Till date, the company has produced energy having a total capacity of 680 MW. Renowned international investors invest in the company, globally. Welspun Renewables has, in fact, successfully evolved from high carbon utilizing infrastructure to a low carbon utilizing one. It is one of the highest renewable energy resource producers in the country that is currently trying to replace the use of fossil fuels and hence working towards sustainable development. An instance of a wind power plant helmed by Welspun Renewables is located at Rajasthan which has a total capacity of 126 MW.