Wind and solar energy sources are emerging as an alternative to the conventional sources of energy to meet the requirements of India. The estimated solar power potential in the country is 749 GW and that of wind power is 695 GW at 120 metre above ground level. Unlike solar resource, wind resource is mainly concentrated in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
The Government has adopted a transparent competitive bidding process for large scale wind, solar and wind-solar hybrid power projects – and has issued guidelines for the same. Accordingly, projects of more than 11 GW wind power and 1.44 GW wind-solar hybrid power have been awarded through transparent competitive bidding process. The bidding has resulted in competitive tariffs, which are much lower than traditional Feed-in Tariffs.
However, a number of projects have been delayed due to land, NoCs and transmission related issues. These challenges and uncertainties have raised the concern of investors in the sector. Further, while solar power project is commissioned on contiguous land, the wind power project requires scattered land on footprint basis, which not only increases the transmission cost but also adds to the possibility of land related issues.
In order to overcome these challenges, the scheme for “Development of Wind Parks/ Wind-Solar Hybrid Park” has been proposed. The park will be a concentrated zone of development of Wind/ Wind-Solar Hybrid power projects with required infrastructure.
