Indian, foreign developers keen on India’s first offshore wind power project

AHMEDABAD: The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Government of

Gujarat

(GoG) are jointly managing the country’s first offshore wind power project, which is set to come up off the Gujarat coastline. Soon after MNRE called for ‘Expression of Interest’ (EoI) for the 1,000 megawatt (MW) project, some 35 national as well as foreign developers have shown keen interest in the project, which will be located some 12 nautical miles from the coastline at the

Pipavav port

, in the Gulf of Khambhat. MNRE along with the state government officials will be holding a presentation meeting with all the developers that have responded to the EoI, in July 2018.


Companies including Torrent Power Ltd and Suzlon Energy Ltd from Ahmedabad, in addition to Deepwater Structures Inc from USA, Parkwind NV in Belgium, Equinor ASA of

Norway

, Squared Capital in Singapore, Climate and Renewables GmbH in Germany and Mainstream Renewable Powers in

Philippines

, among several national and international firms have shown interest in the project. MNRE plans to install at least 5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2022.

“The project will be India’s first offshore wind power project. We will invite the interested companies to visit the site. A Request for Proposal (RFP) for this project will be issued next month. The project will give a major push and opportunity in Pipavav for research and development,” said Raj Gopal, principal secretary, Energy and Petrochemicals Department – GoG.

“MNRE had called for ‘Expression of Interest’ (EoI) for the offshore wind energy project. It has received very good response and 35 national and international developers have taken lot of interest in the project,” he added.

The first offshore LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) was installed in Gulf of Khambhat in Gujarat for measurement of wind resource and National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) is collecting wind speed data from November, 2017 onwards.