The tender has two stages. The first stage: MNRE will make a qualifying selection of the applications meeting the technical specification for wind turbine construction, and the second: MNRE will give preference to the companies offering the highest lease price for offshore areas. The guarantees of free power transmission from offshore wind turbines to onshore substations to be given by India’s state-owned transmission company CTUI are supposed to facilitate expansion of the pool of companies. The applicants losing the upcoming auction will have an opportunity to apply for participation in the remaining seven tenders to be also held in the state of Gujarat, in the northwest coast of India.
If the winners of the tender successfully make their way from auction to construction of generating capacities, India will be among the offshore wind energy producers. Last year, the industry leader was China, surpassing the UK in terms of the installed capacity of offshore wind turbines. The PRC increased them by 17.4 GW (up to 26.4 GW) in 2021, but the United Kingdom – only by 2.3 GW (up to 12.7 GW), according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
Until recently, China’s commissioning capacity was supported by feed-in-tariffs, which guaranteed clean energy suppliers an opportunity to connect to a power grid, as well as to purchase all the generated electricity at a fixed cost. The PRC canceled the feed-in tariffs in January 2022 following Vietnam, Asia’s second-largest offshore wind energy producer, which did it in November 2021.
The effect of feed-in-tariffs allowed China and Vietnam to partially offset high specific capital costs of offshore wind energy: the construction of 1 kW capacity of offshore wind turbines in China costs an average of $2,800 but of the onshore – $1,260, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This indicator in China is several times lower for solar panels ($650 per MW), coal ($800 MW) and gas ($560 per MW) power plants.
The introduction of offshore generators will be the step India makes along the path to more than quadrupling renewable generating capacity by 2030 (from the current 147 GW to 700 GW), which Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at last year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). Hydropower plants (HPPs) remain a key source of clean energy for India: they account for 52 GW of 147 GW of renewable generating capacity, while onshore wind turbines and solar panels account for 40 GW and 50 GW, respectively, and all the other non-fossil sources – 5 GW, follows from IRENA data.
