Government plan to repower old wind power plants which could attract US$ 4.9 billion (Rs. 40,000 crores) investments

As per a CRISIL report, the new draft policy of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, for repowering old wind power plants will increase power generation in the country which could also attract investments worth US$ 4.9 billion (Rs. 40,000 crores) over 3-5 years. It also said that the investment will increase by three times of the average annual wind power CAPEX in the last four fiscal years.

A revised draft of the National Repowering Policy for Wind Power Projects, 2022 was recently issued by the Ministry, as most of the old wind power projects with sub-megawatt (MW) scale wind turbines are yet to be repowered. Mr. Ankit Hakhu, Director, CRISIL Ratings said that this can lead to a replacement of over 5 gigawatts of old windmills with new wind power plants with 2x more generation ability. He added that the viability of such projects looks good as these can generate double-digit returns at tariffs of Rs. 4 per unit for the incremental capacity.

The government started adding the wind power capacity in India around two decades ago with supportive policies of accelerated depreciation and feed-in tariff, and availability of sites with high generation potential. The total installed capacity almost tripled from 13 GW in 2010 to 34 GW in March 2018, as per the report. New windmills can now operate at hub heights of over 150 metres and generate more electricity per unit of machine CAPEX using turbines of over 3 MW capacity.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.