India's Onshore Wind Energy potential is 3000 GW: Study

A study is pegging Indian potential for wind energy at 3,000 GW. It claims that the potential for wind energy utilisation with the prevalent technologies is far in excess of earlier estimates by Center for Wind Energy Technology (CWET). The Centre estimated Indian wind energy potential at 49,000 MW and increased to 100 GW subsequently.

"Scientific and research work carried out by Indian wind industry expert Jami Hossain has inspired scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) to challenge assessments of the Chennai based government agency CWET, on the potential for wind farms in India. Hossain in his paper, published in the international renewable energy journal Renewable Energy, presented his findings on the assessment for potential for windfarms using Geographical Information System Platform," read a media statement issued by World Wind Energy Association (WWEA).

In the paper, Hossain assessed the potential at around 2000 GW, which has now been confirmed by the LBNL study which sees the total onshore wind potential of India between 2000 and 3000 GW.

Commenting on the development, WWEA secretary general Stefan Gsanger said, ""These findings have significant policy implications for India as every unit of electricity generated from wind not only saves oil and coal but also prevent emissions of CO2 and other environmentally dangerous gases. Unfortunately India is not the only country where the wind potential has been underestimated by far." He added that recent studies and national targets from China, Denmark or Germany - and now from India - have demonstrated that wind could cover the whole electricity demand of these countries.

"Many more countries should update their wind potential assessment, based on real data, in order not any more to underestimate the potential contribution of wind power to the national energy supply," said Gsanger.

Hossain stated that they have tried to further refine and improve figures based on competing uses of land in the country but with the continued improvement in technology, the onshore potential is indeed very high compared to what was assessed earlier. "The gross under estimation by CWET has prevented the policy makers and the planning bodies in the country such as the planning commission and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) in recognising wind energy as a major and possibly mainstream source of wind energy," said Hossain.