The Hindu Business Line : ‘Wind Atlas’ in the works

India has slipped to the fifth position in terms of total wind power capacity, even as China has taken the fourth place by adding over 6,000 MW last year alone.

Anil Sasi

New Delhi, Feb. 19 The Centre is in advanced stages of getting an ‘Indian Wind Atlas’ commissioned, which would identify windy locations across the country, and thereby, enable better harnessing of resources by project developers in the future.

The ‘Wind Atlas’ is being prepared by the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) in association with the RISO National Laboratory of Denmark, which has taken up three pilot areas covering different topography and climate types across the country.

Currently, while much of the wind capacities are focused on India’s eastern coastline and parts of the Western Ghats, the wind atlas is aimed at harnessing more wind potential areas, including the North-East and the northern Himalayan zone, besides offshore locations along the coastline.

The wind monitoring data collected from these pilot areas is being used to validate mathematical model, results of which will be used in preparation of the atlas. “In order to have preliminary idea of the offshore wind resources, parts of the seas surrounding the country are also being included in the project. A realistic reassessment of potential will be possible, once the wind atlas is available,” an official said.

The move comes in the wake of sluggish growth in wind-based power installations in the country, with India slipping to the fifth position in terms of total wind power capacity, even as China has taken the fourth place by adding over 6,000 MW in new capacity last year alone.

The ‘wind atlas’ methodology, in general, was first developed and described in detail for the European Wind Atlas. An atlas basically makes it possible to transfer detailed information about the mean wind climate from one location (the predictor site) to another (the predicted site). At present, the wind atlas methodology has been employed in about 105 countries and territories around the world. National wind atlases exist for about 30 countries.

Coastal locations

Currently, under the country’s National Wind Monitoring Programme, wind data is obtained from 54 coastal locations. While the Gujarat coastline has reasonable potential, it is prone to severe cyclonic conditions. So far, two locations at Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu and Mundra at Gulf of Kutch have shown good potential, where wind power density of about 350-500 watt per sq m (square metres) has been recorded.

India has been slipping on the wind capacity addition front, even as countries such as China have been making steady progress in adding wind capacities. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, a global body for the wind energy sector, India added 1,800 MW during the year taking the total installed capacity to 9,645 MW.

China, in comparison, added a whopping 6,300 MW, second only to the US in new additions, taking its installed capacity at the end of the year to 12,210 MW. The US, with 8,358 MW added during the year, overtook Germany to become the leading country in terms of total wind energy installed capacity.