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India to auction wind projects to meet PM Modi’s 60-gigawatt target

India will introduce competitive auctions for wind farms this year in a bid to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal for 60 gigawatts (GW) of capacity by 2022.Varsha Joshi, joint secretary at the new and renewable energy ministry, said the auctions for 1 gigawatt of capacity will start in two months and have a minimum size of 25 megawatts. The ambition is to spur trading of wind power between states.“The purpose is to achieve the target of 60 gigawatts of wind capacity, which can not happen only with wind energy being absorbed in the states that produce it,” Joshi said in a phone interview.

“The government seeks to create a mechanism to discover the right price for interstate sale of wind,” Joshi said adding that interstate wind sale is also essential for grid balancing.Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI), which is the government’s implementing agency for renewable projects will bring out tenders in a couple of months’ time.SECI will first invite an expressions of interest for a power trader, which will help find buyers for electricity from wind projects, Joshi said. This power trader will share margins with SECI.Competitive auctions for wind projects would remove the onus on the handful of the most windy states developing much of the capacity to use all the power that is being produced.

Seven states that have all of India’s wind capacity are mostly south and west of the capital, New Delhi.