Floating a new energy source - Global Wind Energy Council

The Hindu Business Line

With the Cabinet approving the long-pending offshore wind energy policy last week, a fresh opportunity blows India's way, writes M Ramesh

In a few months Fukushima will have something positive to balance out its notoriety as the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters. A little distance out into the ocean from the city, the Japanese are putting up a huge 7 MW wind turbine — as yet the world’s biggest. The Japanese expect this project to showcase their resilience as a nation. But the machine will also send out another message — the time to take offshore wind seriously has come.

It certainly has come to India. Last week, the Cabinet formally approved the National Offshore Wind Energy Policy, which had lived on the shelves as a draft for two years. It was a milestone event, for it brings to fruition a process that began in 1992 — the year when Dr L R Chary wrote a report pointing out the prospects of offshore wind.

Chary, then a General Manager of the Shipping Corporation of India, got the idea when he noticed ships carrying Sri Lankan refugees back home plying alongside escort naval vessels on the way up, but lagging behind on the way back. If wind and sea currents could move large ships, can they not turn wind turbines? Offshore wind was a novel concept even globally (the first offshore installation happened in 1991.)

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