India Aims High with Plans for Tendering 5GW of Offshore Wind in 2018

India’s New & Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh stated on 14 December that the government will invite the first tenders for building offshore wind farms in 2018 and plans to auction as much as 5GW, according to Times of India.

India is the fourth largest onshore wind market in the world, with a total capacity of around 32.6GW and will see further 9GW after the onshore wind auctions, 2GW of which have already been tendered.

Currently, the country has 60GW of renewable energy capacity in a total installed generation capacity of 330GW.

According to Energy Minister Singh, India could have 200GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022, with good share of this coming also from solar power.

As for offshore wind, the states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu were designated as ideal locations for the first offshore wind farms in India, after a feasibility study in 2014. In 2015, the FOWIND consortium released pre-feasibility reports which identified the key areas off the coast of the two states where detailed wind resource assessment should be carried out.

In late October 2017, FOWIND commissioned India’s first offshore LiDAR off the coast of Gujarat, in the Gulf of Khambhat, to measure the offshore wind resource.