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Mr K.V. Bala, Chairman, Indowind Energy Ltd (file photo).

T. Murrali

Chennai, Aug. 18 The Chennai-based Indowind Energy Ltd (IEL), an independent power project company in renewable energy, finds Tamil Nadu unattractive to expand.

The Chairman of the company, Mr K.V. Bala, told Business Line that the company has set a target to install windmills to the tune of 100 MW in couple of years. However, all the units would come up outside Tamil Nadu since it is becoming a “non-viable business” in the State, he said.

The company is looking at few States including Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan besides few neighbouring countries and European Union, he said.

So far IEL installed windmills with a cumulative capacity of 59 MW during the last 13 years. While 36 MW are installed in Tamil Nadu, the rest is in Karnataka.

According to Mr Bala, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board’s tariff (Rs 2.95 per unit) is the lowest in the country for wind energy. On the other hand, costs are rising due to “prohibitively high costs of finance” and soaring prices of steel, cement and land. While the total cost of the project has gone by at least three folds during the last five years, the cost of wind turbine increased only by 30 to 40 per cent, he said.

The growth of wind power in various States in the country witnessed a slowdown in 2007-08 compared to previous year. The total installed capacity is 8,757 MW including 1,663 MW added during 2007-08 against 1,742 MW added during the year ago period. In the case of Tamil Nadu, the drop was close to 50 per cent to 380 MW during 2007-08 against 578 MW added in the previous year.

Apart from the relatively lower tariff issue, withdrawal of interest rate subsidies under the ‘textile upgradation fund’ scheme for wind power projects, also affected investments, sources in the industry say.

Besides, the Class I sites (where the wind flow is more and the season is for close to nine months in a year) in Tamil Nadu have exhausted and only the Class II sites can be experimented with, where the generation will be lesser. Despite better machines, the power generation cannot be matched and hence are not attractive enough to secure funding, Mr Bala said.

More Stories on : Non-conventional Energy | Tamil Nadu

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