The Power of air is here in India

Vikram kapoor

You may have played with paper wheel attached with a thin wooden stick scrolling speedily with the flow of wind. A kid gets excited and become energetic when he observes the rotation of the colourful paper wheel.

As a kid, we may not have realised the importance of wind in our life but today, the same wind is helping the world to create electricity in large areas of different countries. 

With the similar concept of this paper toy, engineers have developed advanced and heavy wind turbines which are placed in the wind farms to create electricity with the help of big power generators in many states of India.

India started its renewable energy mission in early 70’s. 

Today, it is worlds one of the largest renewable energy programmers. It can be seen in remote villages, metros and huge industries.  

This will help in operating small industries and thousands of villages. Indian companies are producing modern turbines and related components ingeniously therefore India is growing much faster than the global market which is the result of its high potential

With the tag of a complete developing nation, today, Indian wind energy already has the 5th largest installed capacity in the world and is set to grow at a rapid pace driven by investments from the private wind turbine manufacturers. The total installed power capacity was 19,565 MW on June 30, 2013.

More than 95 percent of total nation’s wind energy generates from just five states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Most of the Installed Wind Capacity in India is located in the southern and industrial states of the country.

The other states like UP, Bihar lacks sufficient Wind Energy Capacity despite having high power tariffs and substantial electricity deficits.

In the current environment of global concern over climate change, we must look critically at the operational efficiency of clean energy power plants and increase energy efficiency which can be achieved through different sources of renewable energy.

With the increasing population and demand in a country like India, electricity is the basic need which lacks in most of the rural India and this is also one of the major causes of lack of economic growth in the country.

According to Centre for Wind Energy Technology, the wind energy installation in the country in 2011-12 was 3,197 MW which fell to 1,698 MW in 2012-13. The figures slightly picked up to 2,000 MW in 2013-14.

India can get 35% of its power from renewable energy by 2030. Thought the government has not given much importance for the growth of wind energy production and its urgent need in the recent 2014 budget, the government of India decided to add 10,000 MW per year to lift wind energy sector to reduce India's dependence on costly energy imports.

As there is good demand wind turbines installation in India and abroad, like other power gear makers, Indian wind turbine makers too are facing competition from Chinese counterparts that also offer cheaper finance to the investors in wind energy 

The biggest advantage with wind energy is that the fuel is free, and also it doesn’t produce CO2 emission. Wind farm can be built reasonably fast, the wind farm land can be used for farming as well thus serving dual purpose, and it is cost-effective as compare to other forms of renewable energy.

One wind turbine can be sufficient to generate energy for a household. Because wind is a source of energy which is non-polluting and renewable, wind turbines create power without using fossil fuels, without producing greenhouse gases or radioactive or toxic waste which also reduces global warming.

There are some of the issues which are hurdles in the way of growth of the wind energy and the development process like Forest land clearance, Creation of infrastructure for power evacuation and transmission facilities, availability of land for wind farms, Potential land mostly acquired by manufacturers/ developers, Implementation of revised tariff as per CERC (Central electricity regulatory commission) guidelines and Development of scheduling and forecasting system.

Thought wind energy is 100% clean and green energy, it has some shortcomings too. Noise disturbances, threat to wildlife(can kill with the turbines) and absence of wind in many places are the demerits which has to be taken care off before planning of the setup of the wind turbines and its location so that these problems can be cured and result in producing safe energy for all.