India has potential to add 23.7 gigawatts of clean power by 2026

By Gulsen Cagatay

ANKARA (AA) - Wind energy could help India add 23.7 gigawatts (GW) of clean capacity by 2026 with state help and national support, Global Wind Energy Association (GWEC) said in a recent report.

According to the report, Renewing Wind Growth to Power the Energy Transition: India Wind Energy Market Outlook 2026, wind power constituted the majority of the renewable energy mix in India, with 37.7% of cumulative installed capacity as of March 2022.

The country is estimated to reach 600 GW of onshore capacity at 120-meter hub height, with another 174 GW of fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind potential.

"These statistics demonstrate that there is a huge untapped wind energy potential that will be crucial for advancing the country’s clean energy transition," the report stated.

Commenting on the report, Sumant Sinha, chairperson of GWEC India and CEO of ReNew Power, said that standalone and hybrid projects were oversubscribed from 2021 until the release of this report edition when 2.7 GW of Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) wind/solar hybrid (WSH) tenders and 3.5 GW of wind projects had been awarded.

He said this oversubscription “reinstates the ever-growing prominent role of wind energy for decarbonization and resilience building in the grid system."

The report revealed that India's considerable wind energy momentum has been built in the pipeline since 2017-2018, but delays in project execution challenged the assumptions of developers.