The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has declared medium- and long-term targets for offshore wind power capacity addition.
An official statement said the target is 5 GW by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030.
The MNRE had earlier invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the first 1 GW offshore wind project in India.
“While this may look moderate in comparison to India’s onshore wind target of 60 GW and its achievement of 34 GW and solar target of 100 GW by 2022, this would still be challenging considering the difficulties in installing large wind power turbines in open seas,” said the statement. “It may be mentioned that offshore wind turbines are of much larger dimensions and capacities than onshore turbines.”
The National Off-Shore Wind Policy was notified in October 2015. Preliminary studies have indicated good wind potential for offshore wind power both in the southern tip of the Indian peninsula and the west coast.
Globally, 17-18 GW of offshore wind power has been installed, led by countries such as the UK, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and China. There has also been a fall in offshore wind tariff in the recent years in some of these markets.