We are very pleased to share with you more updates about GWEC’s FOWIND (Facilitating Offshore Wind in India) project in India. Just to summarize in December 2013, the GWEC led consortium was granted this four-year project to facilitate the development of Offshore Wind in India by the EU Delegation to India.
The FOWIND project is supported by a €4 million grant contribution through the European Union’s Indo-European Cooperation on Renewable Energy programme and another € 0.5 million contribution through GPCL. The project will be executed in close cooperation with the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the Governments of the states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu; and the National Institute for Wind Energy (NIWE) to assess opportunities for offshore wind in India. More..
GWEC partners with DNV GL, the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP, India), the Gujarat Power Corporation (GPCL, India) and the World Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE, India) under this project. Further IL&FS Energy Development Company Limited (IL&FS, India) joined the consortium as a strategic partner in April 2014.
In April the FOWIND website was launched in New Delhi (www.fowind.in). Later in the year the project inception report was released. It assesses the baseline conditions for offshore wind development in India. In September a series of stakeholder workshops were held in New Delhi, Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu) to promote deeper understanding around offshore wind amongst key stakeholders in India.
In September, GWEC also led the delegation of Indian government officials as part of the FOWIND project, led by MNRE’s Joint Secretary Alok Srivastava (he has since moved to the Ministry of Shipping and is succeeded by Ms Varsha Joshi), and accompanied by our Indian EU benefactor, Ms. Smita Singh.
Dr. Srivastava gave a number of presentations in a number of workshops and has been a major support to the wind energy sector in India over the past several years. But in all likelihood that's not the last we'll see of him, as he's moving to the Shipping ministry; and from what he saw with the rest of the delegation in the ports of Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven, he'll have his work cut out for him building port facilities for offshore wind in India.
In addition to the field visits, the Indian delegation participated in a number of forums: on the comparison between policies in India and the German Energiewende; on Germany's experiences with the Alpha Ventus test site - which was timely given the fact that the Indian government is about to sign an MOU for an offshore pilot project; as well as providing the Indian perspective in our global market forum, joining GWEC member associations from South Africa, Brazil and Turkey. The trip also included a visit to FOWIND project partner DNV-GL's HQ in Hamburg; presentations from LM Wind Power, Siemens and the Renewable Energy Hamburg cluster; as well as the obligatory formal tour of the exhibition, which took all afternoon and ended up with an informal reception at the Senvion booth.
By the end of the year, the project will be ready with two more reports i.e Global Offshore Policy report and a pre-feasibility report for the States of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. The pre-feasibility report will help to identify and narrow down potential zones for offshore wind development along the coasts of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. FOWIND will undertake long-term wind resource assessment in at least one site in 2015. The project actions include installation of a LiDAR for wind resource validation in at least two zones during the project period. The locations will be narrowed down based on the feedback from key stakeholders in India on the findings and analysis of the pre-feasibility report. These reports will be available publicly on the project website.
We look forward to keeping GWEC members and friends updated on the outcomes of the project over coming months and years. We will also be in touch whenever we hold conferences or seminars under the project for possible collaboration and participation. If you have any questions about the project, feel free to write to us.
Shruti Shukla
Senior Policy Advisor, GWEC
