Chennai, Oct 21 The next edition of the Indian wind industry’s biennial exhibition-cum-conference, Windergy, is to be held between October 4 and 6 of next year in Chennai. 

The Secretary General of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association (IWTMA), which is the voice of the Indian wind industry and the host of the event, D V Giri, has observed that Tamil Nadu is the birthplace of the industry. The State has a strong presence of the industry’s supply chain, Giri told Business Line today. The event will be held at the Chennai Trade Center. 

He said that after a dismal 1,110 MW of new capacity installations in 2021-22, things are looking up in the industry. Giri expects current year’s installations to cross the 2,400 MW mark and touching 4,000 MW next year.  

After reaching a peak of 5,502 MW in 2016-17, installations have fallen due to various reasons (see table). Today, wind power plants account for 10 per cent of total installed electricity capacity in the country and 5 per cent of energy generation. 

Capacity addition in MW 
2016-17  5,502
2016-17  5,502 
2017-18   1,865 
2018-19  1,481
2019-20  2,118
2020-21  1,503
2021-22  1,110

Outlook optimistic

The current year’s new installations would be buoyant because companies that were awarded projects under earlier rounds of the government company, SECI, are now nearing their completion deadline. 

The reason for optimism for 2022-23 is the emerging (relatively) favorable regulation regime. The current method of “reverse auction” for awarding projects would be replaced by “closed auction” -- there would be no further bidding and counter-bidding, once the bids are open. This would avoid competitive cutting-down of tariffs, which means that wind energy companies can hope to get better prices for their energy. 

Secondly, the industry is hopeful of securing ‘full-year banking’ -- which means that a wind energy company can ‘bank’ any surplus energy produced during windy seasons with the utilities and draw it back any time during the year. Right now, banking is allowed for a few months only. 

“Things are looking up in the wind industry,” Giri said. It is against this backdrop that the next Windergy 2023 is being held, in Chennai.  

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