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The Union Cabinet gave its approval for the National Offshore Wind Energy policy on Wednesday which would provide the roadmap for development of such plants in the country.
“The policy framework will provide a roadmap for mapping the offshore wind energy potential. Based on this, we will locate and identify the areas which have the potential for offshore wind energy. Government will get all approvals for these areas and offer it to developers by way of bidding,” Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, said.
The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy will be the nodal ministry for use of offshore areas within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the country and the National Institute of Wind Energy will be the nodal agency to allocate wind energy blocks to developers.
As per the policy, the offshore wind energy plants can come up to seaward distance of 200 nautical miles of the country from the base line.
Goyal said that as per estimates, Gujarat has the potential of around 100,000 MW for offshore wind energy, while Tamil Nadu has about 60,000 MW potential. “As and when the scale of operations increase, the competitiveness of off-shore wind energy will also improve,” he added.
Coal linkage for Barh plant
Apart from the Cabinet decisions, the Minister also said that the Barh power plant of NTPC in Bihar has been given a coal linkage. This would help reduce the variable cost of generation of the plant to ₹ 2 a unit from ₹ 4.15 a unit.
The plant has a generation capacity of 1,320 MW, of which 660 MW is already operational and the remaining will be operational by next month.
“The yearly savings will be to the tune of ₹ 2,000 crore because of the coal linkage being provided to the plant,” Goyal said, adding that 1,110 MW of the power generated from Barh has been allocated for Bihar.
Further, as part of the Bihar package, around ₹ 1,850 crore of additional investment has been approved for the State as part of the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana and Integrated Power Development Scheme.
Goyal said that originally ₹ 6,106 crore had been approved for the State under the two schemes which are related to electricity transmission. The approval has now been increased to ₹ 7,956 crore.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the revised cost estimate for four-laning of the Ramban to Banihal section and Udhampur to Ramban of the National Highway in Jammu & Kashmir.
The revised cost estimate of the Ramban to Banihal section stands at ₹ 2,168.66 crore, while Udhampur to Ramban will be ₹ 2,136.97 crore.
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