India's Wind Potential 30 Times Greater Than Believed?

[kristopher]

India's Wind Potential 30 Times Greater Than Believed?
March 26, 2012

New Hampshire, U.S.A. -- A recent reassessment of the India wind energy market blows the lid off of previous capacity estimates.

The nation has been operating under analysis from the Center for Wind Energy Technology, which puts the nation’s onshore capacity at about 100 GW. But recent reassessments from China to Germany prompted independent researchers and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to dig a little deeper and look at the potential in light of new tools and new technology.

In a paper in the international renewable energy journal Renewable Energy, Indian wind energy expert Jami Hossain used the Geographical Information System Platform to raise the potential to 2,000 GW. The LBNL subsequently moved that total even higher, pushing the potential to 3,000 GW. That’s 30 times the current estimate.

“We have tried to further refine and improve these 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,” said Hossain. “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 in recognizing wind energy as a major and possibly mainstream source of wind energy. With rising oil prices and uncertainties associated as well as major bottlenecks in supply of coal, the findings assume importance from an energy security and global environmental perspective."

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/03/asia-report-indias-wind-potential-30-times-greater-than-believed?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-March27-2012

[kristopher]

1. India Solar: From 250MW in 2011 to 33+GW in 2022

Indian solar capacity to hit 33.4 GW by 2022; off-grid potential "huge"
DECEMBER 2011 BY: BECKY STUART

A new report on India’s solar market forecasts that as much as 33.4 gigawatts of both off- and on-grid solar will be installed in the country by 2022. While the National Solar Mission (NSM) aims to install 20 GW, it is believed there are "huge" off-grid opportunities. Furthermore, Rajasthan is expected to become the country’s solar hub.

According to Bridge to India’s new India Solar Handbook, by the end of 2011, almost 250 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic systems will be installed in the country, up from just 22 MW at the start of the year. By 2014, it expects to see around 14.5 GW of installed solar power. Meanwhile, it is anticipated that grid parity will be achieved in 2018. And, by 2022, 33.4 GWs of solar will be in place in India.

The "preferential" feed-in tariffs (FITS) offered under the NSM and Gujarat’s Solar policy have been cited as the keys to this impressive growth, which has thus far been focused on the grid-connected market. This, says the research company, will continue for the next three years, due to a "lack of incentives outside the policies and because solar power is not yet commercially viable on a large scale".

Solar incentives

The NSM was launched in 2009. The aim is to install 20 GW of grid-connected and two GW of off-grid photovoltaics and concentrated solar power by 2022 across three phases. Under the first phase, which saw project sizes capped at five MW, around 333 project developers submitted bids in autumn 2010, worth 1.81 GW. This "unexpected oversubscription" led to the introduction of a bidding process.

While this has served to ...

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/indian-solar-capacity-to-hit-334-gw-by-2022-off-grid-potential-huge_100005301/#ixzz1qQ26UFqG