India’s wind power capacity crossed the 50 GW-mark in March, thanks to fresh installations in 2024-25 of 4,151 MW—the second highest ever, after 5,400 MW in 2016-17.
Gujarat, which added 954.76 MW in 2024-25, has the highest wind capacity in the country, with 12,677 MW. Tamil Nadu, the windiest state in the country and the birthplace of the country’s wind industry, comes next with 11,739 MW.
In 2024-25, Karnataka saw the highest capacity addition of 1,331.49 MW and today has total installed capacity of 7,351 MW. Again, Tamil Nadu added 1,136.37 MW—the second highest among all states.
Though the first ever wind plant, a 40-kW machine, was set up in Veraval for testing purpose, Gujarat in the early 1980s, wind power began as an industry in India around 1986, with Khemka family starting NEPC-Micon, in Chennai. The industry gathered momentum primarily after Tulsi Tanti, a Gujarati textile businessman, started Suzlon in the 1990s.
For two decades, ‘wind’ was the leading renewable energy source (not counting large hydro projects), until the solar movement started in 2010-11. Solar power, which unlike wind can be set up anywhere, soon overtook wind, and has just crossed the 100 GW mark.
But wind is slowly gaining momentum, as evidenced by 4,151 MW set up last financial year. The potential is very high—695 GW if the turbines are put up at a height of 120 metres and 1,164 GW at 150 metres (compared with 50 GW reached today.)
Madhusudhan Khemka, part of the family that set up NEPC-Micon, told businessline today that India can easily install 6 GW a year. Likewise, M P Ramesh, an industry veteran and former head of the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WeT, today renamed as National Institute of Wind Energy), Chennai, notes that while 50 GW “is a landmark achievement”, the next 100 GW “will happen at a far higher rate.”
U B Reddy, Vice Chairman of Indian Wind Power Association and Managing Director, Enerfra Projects, credits NIWE for the achievement, noting that it was NIWE’s estimate of wind potential that formed the basis of development. Another industry veteran, Ramesh Kymal, who headed companies like Vestas India and Gamesa, says that “while the sun stole headlines”, wind kept turning the turbines “against policy winds--a whispering resilience and silent revolution.”
Delicately poised
Wind installations used to be driven by states—mainly, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat—but the action shifted to other states after the central government began capacity auctions in 2017. The ‘tariff based competitive bidding’ scheme, which brought in demand aggregation and scale, hammered down tariffs—from at least ₹4.16 that Tamil Nadu paid developers, to under ₹2.50. However, this had the effect of shrinking annual installations, because while developers bid aggressively, many abandoned the projects, finding them unviable.
A major policy help came in the form of waiver of ‘interstate transmission system’ charges, which meant that a developer could set up a wind farm anywhere and sell the power to the government’s auctioning agency, SECI – though it is another matter that everyone flocked to Gujarat due to the state’s good wind speeds and land availability.
Now the industry is delicately poised as the waiver of ISTS charges will begin to taper off from this quarter. Consequently, it is expected that the action will shift back to the states. Since generation depends upon wind speeds, states wind lower wind speeds are likely to see a rise in tariffs.
Thus, the next 50 GW will be an interesting phase of India’s wind industry evolution.