Repowering of wind farms on Govt. agenda: Piyush Goyal

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal has talked about reforms to ensure better capacity utilisation of wind energy projects.

"I am looking at ways to get repowering done, I know the challenges of new wind sights or getting land,

we are trying to get squatters out of the land which they are squatting on but not implementing projects and we are talking to states to create a more robust framework," said Goyal while addressing an industry interactive session held at ASSOCHAM yesterday.

He also informed that the government plans to use off-grid power generation in certain villages.

"We are not only ceased of it but we are working relentlessly on a daily basis to fine tune and refine our proposals on that without giving any subsidy again or any grant/additional money (to the states)," he added.

Goyal further said the Power Ministry is developing a framework for repowering wind farms from 200-300 watt units to 2-5 mega watt that are available in the market.

The Power Minister pointed out that making the renewable energy sector self-sufficient and self-reliant by cutting back on subsidies is a sensitive issue.

Goyal also said that government plans to bring down the cost of each LED bulb to Rs. 44 from a level of Rs. 74 through competitive bidding.

Referring to slow progress of hydel power sector, Goyal said that he has been able to get the Teesta power project back on line with work expected to start soon.

Talking about the poor progress of renewable energy sector in India, Goyal stated, "Effectively what I inherited was a situation where the industry had almost given up hope, you had anti-dumping looming large on solar industry, wind industry was crumbling in the back of withdrawal of certain fiscal benefits, with plants almost dead or sick.