After a lull of several years, the wind power sector has received a second wind, with record annual capacity addition of 6.05 GW in 2025-26. Despite this momentum, only a small share of India’s wind potential has been tapped. India aims for 155 GW of wind power capacity by 2035-36, but as of June 2026, the installed wind capacity had crossed just 57 GW. The sector is at a crossroads, and annual additions will need to nearly double over the next decade to achieve the country’s target for the next decade.
The challenges facing the sector, stakeholder experiences and the future outlook were at the centre of discussions during Renewable Watch’s 14th edition of the “Wind Power in India” conference, held in July 2026. While wind installations have picked up, project execution continues to face significant hurdles. Land acquisition, transmission readiness and evacuation infrastructure remain the biggest bottlenecks for developers. More than 44 GW of awarded renewable energy projects are currently delayed due to pending power purchase agreements (PPAs), power sale agreements (PSAs) and transmission connectivity. In addition, the tightening of the deviation settlement mechanism (DSM) regulations is expected to impact the viability of standalone wind projects. Stakeholders emphasised the need for stronger coordination among transmission utilities and developers, faster deployment of energy storage, adoption of advanced transmission technologies, and expansion of the transmission network under Green Energy Corridor Phase III.
Offshore wind continues to be the sector’s biggest missing piece. Despite ambitious targets, no offshore wind project has been awarded so far. Solar Energy Corporation of India’s cancellation of offshore wind tenders has dampened developer interest, with concerns centred on high project costs, technology risks, uncertain returns and a nascent domestic supply chain.
The conference also highlighted the need to strengthen India’s wind manufacturing ecosystem. While the localisation of towers and blades has progressed significantly, critical components such as bearings, heavy castings, forgings, gearboxes and power electronics still rely heavily on imports. Wind equipment manufacturing in India also remains 15-20 per cent more expensive than in China, underlining the need to improve competitiveness through policy support, manufacturing scale and localisation. Going forward, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need to focus on technology advancements to keep pace with global developments and ensure better capacity utilisation of their facilities.
The operations and maintenance (O&M) landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies. The focus is shifting from simply ensuring turbine availability to maximising energy generation through predictive maintenance, AI-enabled weather forecasting and integrated turbine health monitoring. These tools are helping improve forecasting and scheduling accuracy, reduce DSM-related penalties, lower life cycle costs and enhance asset reliability. However, limited access to operational data, coupled with data-sharing concerns among OEMs, independent service providers and project developers, continues to hinder optimisation efforts. Addressing these issues through transparent data-sharing frameworks and collaborative O&M models will be essential to unlock higher performance and improve long-term asset management.
Looking ahead, clearing the PPA-PSA backlog, strengthening transmission infrastructure, streamlining land approvals, expanding offshore wind, initiating repowering, and further supporting hybrid and round-the-clock renewable energy projects will be critical to accelerating wind power deployment and improving investor confidence. Will the sector be able to address these legacy concerns or will these issues persist? It remains to be seen where the wind blows.
