The rapid rise of energy consumption across India, an inevitable result of better living standards for many, has led to the nation’s government setting a mandatory renewable energy target of 15 percent by 2020.
With a market of around 1.2 billion people needing a reliable electricity electricity supply, India looks set to become an investment dream for companies in the wind and solar power sector.
GE Energy has announced it will make its first foray into India’s wind power market, partnering with India-based clean energy developers, the Greenko Group, to build a 500 megawatt (MW) wind power network across the country.
GE will invest $50 million into creating a new subsidiary of Greenko, the Greenko Wind Project Private Ltd. Greenko has put up $65 million to support the venture and plans to eventually develop one gigawatt of wind projects in a nation it says has yet to tap a fraction of its huge wind energy potential.
“Greenko estimates that with an average growth rate of 30 percent, wind energy is the fastest growing clean energy source in India . . . less than 25 percent of the country’s wind energy potential – estimated at 45,000 megawatts – has been harnessed to date,” a company statement says.
To achieve the 500MW goal, the new venture will build a network of wind farms across four Indian states and will use GE’s factory in Pune, India to assemble the 1.6 MW wind turbines for the initial 65MW Ratnagiri wind farm. To best suit Indian environmental conditions, the GE wind turbines are specifically designed provide maximum power output at low and medium wind speeds.
Once operational, GE says the 500-megawatt wind farm project could generate enough renewable electricity to power 875,000 average Indian households and displace 700,000 tonnes per year of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 137,000 average US cars off the road.
