According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), India’s wind capacity could reach between 48 GW and 54 GW by 2020, below the government’s 60 GW target. This is due to supply-side constraints mainly caused by transmission costs and access to land. In addition, unavailability of finance, low tariffs and payments delays are also hindering wind capacity development.
Recent allocation rounds faced massive under-subscription, and the latest wind tender (Round Nine) for 1.2 GW, which included an INR2.9/kWh tariff cap (US$4c/kWh), was rescheduled several times owing to a lack of interest from industry. As a consequence, the wind sector saw only 2.4 GW of new wind projects, in spite of a huge amount of auctioned capacity. Earlier in March 2020, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy issued a new regulation authorising the tendering agencies and state utilities to remove tariff cap from wind and solar tenders. The upcoming federal tender (Round Ten) should not include a tariff cap. The decision is not expected to make a major difference for solar auctions, as prices are already quite low (INR2.5/kWh i.e. US$3c/kWh in the latest round) but could lead to a higher tariff for wind.
Installed renewable power capacity in India crossed the 84 GW threshold in December 2019 (84.4 GW), with wind power capacity reaching 37,280 MW, solar capacity 32,530 MW, biomass capacity 9,940 MW and small hydropower capacity 4,650 MW.
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