Topic– Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
7) Despite its many challenges, wind energy in India has a lot to gain from its experience and its large manufacturing base. Analyze.(250 words)
Why this question
India has been placing huge importance to renewable energy and has launched various missions in this regard. Wind Energy Mission however has been recently witnessing a downfall. In this context it is important to discuss the challenges faced by the sector.
Directive word
Analyze-here we have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts, and present them as a whole in a summary.
Key demand of the question.
The question wants us to dig deep into the wind energy sector in India and bring out the challenges involved in the sector and what we can learn from our experience.
Structure of the answer
Introduction- Write a few introductory lines about the wind energy generation in India. E.g mention the capacity added in recent years and also mention the decrease in capacity addition witnessed recently.
Body-
- Discuss the challenges faced by the sector. E.g
- In 2016 the government shifted to the auctioning regime for tariff determination. This was a worthy effort to bring competition into a cost-complacent market, especially in light of the success solar energy had achieved.
- Due to failure to adapt to this measure, Installations stalled, falling from 5.4 GW in 2017 to 1.7GW in 2018, and less than 1 GW is expected in 2019.
- The financial issues faced by distribution companies (DISCOMs) pose a significant threat to wind energy and so do payment delays, curtailment and PPA defaults.
- The failure of the UDAY scheme, introduced to ease the financial stress on the DISCOMs, has further added to the concerns. With increasing concentration of wind installations in just a few states, these DISCOM issues are bound to intensify.
- Discuss the lessons learnt so far and what needs to be done. E.g
- Repowering old wind projects — replacing them with newer, efficient technology — could optimise utilisation of high wind potential sites.
- There is need to reform and reduce fragmented ownership and captive consumers.
- There is the need for a third-party player who acts as intermediary — someone who consolidates the old project owners (probably 70-80%) — and then facilitates repowering
- in addition to consolidating, there was a need to compensate the old project owner for the remaining life of their assets.
Conclusion– based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
