Till recently, the on-shore wind power potential in India was officially estimated to be 102 GW at a hub height of 80 m. About 26 GW of this potential has been installed in the country. However, there are multiple independent reassessment studies in the public domain that estimate the potential to be much higher. This is due to variations in assumptions and methodologies used.
The main characteristic of these studies is that they take into account Land Use Land Cover (LULC) classifications and use a GIS-based methodology to estimate the wind power potential across the country. In order to achieve the national target of adding 60 GW of wind power capacity by 2022, it would be important to reassess the technical on-shore wind potential in the country and identify areas where the potential can be harnessed optimally. This would also be required to design and implement effective policies for capacity deployment. In this context, a Committee was constituted by the MNRE with an objective to reassess the technical on-shore wind potential of India for all major land types at a hub height of 100 and 120 m. As part of this Committee CSTEP, WFMS and SSEF conducted the reassessment exercise using two separate data sets and a common methodology. The methodology used for the analysis, and some of the key findings are discussed briefly below.
*Dr. Jami Hossain, Dr. Deepshikha Sharma, Neelu Kumar Mishra, and Zia Ulhaq Ansari from WinDForce Management Services Pvt. Ltd. (WFMS); and Disha Agarwal from Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF) also contributed to this report.
