Till recently, the on-shore wind power potential in India was officially estimated to be 49 GW, out of which 17 GW forms part of the country’s mainstream energy mix. However, recent studies have indicated this potential to be underestimated. A few studies have estimated wind potential in India to be over 2000 GW and the official wind resource potential was recently revised to 102 GW by the Center for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET), at 80 m hub height. Given that wind power generation technology is already cost-effective, if this revised potential is confirmed to exist, wind can form a significant share of the country’s energy mix. It is to this effect that CSTEP undertook the study of reassessment of wind resource potential in the states of Karnataka (KA) and Andhra Pradesh (AP), which account for more than one-fourth of the wind potential in the country according to official estimates. The methodology used, and some of the key findings of this study are discussed in this report.
