India’s wind capacity addition is expected to increase by ~2.5 times to nearly 25 GW between fiscals 2025 and 2028 compared with ~9 GW between fiscals 2021 and 2024, entailing a capital expenditure (capex) of Rs 1.8–2 trillion.
This rides on the increasing importance of wind generation in India’s renewable mix for grid balancing and providing renewable power throughout the day vis-à-vis solar generation, which typically happens during the day.
A ramp-up in auctions of wind and hybrid projects (including storage linked projects) supported by construction of transmission infrastructure to wind sites, improved financial profiles of wind original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and viable tariff bids in recent past indicate as much.
India added wind capacity at ~3.0 GW per year between fiscals 2014 and 2018. However, the pace slowed down to 1.7 GW between fiscals 2018 and 2023 owing to lack of connected sites with high wind potential and diminished returns for developers following aggressive bidding.
Several policies/ initiatives have since been rolled out to strengthen the prospects of the wind sector. For instance, the government has set a target to auction 50 GW of renewable projects every year, including 10 GW of standalone wind projects for specifically reinvigorating wind capacity additions. This has already led to auction of around 5 GW standalone wind projects since the start of fiscal 2023, vis-à-vis around 3 GW auctioned in fiscals 2021 and 2022.
Auctions of hybrid and storage linked projects are also on the rise—up from 4 GW in fiscals 2021 and 2022 to nearly 18 GW in fiscals 2024 and 2023.
Says Ankit Hakhu, Director, CRISIL Ratings “Hybrid and storage linked projects would push higher wind additions. Nearly 30-50% of capacity of these projects will comprise wind power as these require developers to provide renewable power throughout the day, especially demand peaks during evening and night hours.”
To further support wind capacity additions, supply side constraints have started to ease through an improvement in transmission connectivity and better financial health of wind OEMs.
The government is developing transmission infrastructure to improve connectivity to sites with high wind potential and plans to increase connected capacity for wind sites from ~50 GW as of December 2022 to ~75 GW by March 2025 and ~100 GW by December 2027.
