35 developers express interest in Gujarat's offshore wind proj

As many as 35 national and international developers have expressed interest in the country's first offshore wind energy project, and the process of inviting Request For Proposal (RFP) should take place next month, according to senior officials.

The wind energy project with a capacity to produce 1,000 megawatt has been planned off the coast of Pipavav port in Gujarat.

The project is being developed jointly by Central Ministry of New and Renewable Energy(MNRE) and Gujarat government, said Raj Gopal, Principal Secretary, Gujarat Energy and Petrochemicals department, while talking to reporters on the sidelines of 'Solar Conclave 2018', organised by Gujarat chapter of CII and Dholera Industrial City Development Ltd.

"As many as 35 national and international developers have shown interest in that project while responding to the call for 'Expression of Interest' by the MNRE recently. The process of inviting Request For Proposal (RFP) should take place next month," Gopal added.

He said that offshore wind projects allow the developers to install larger capacity wind turbines, which is not possible in the onshore projects due to the transportation constraints.

"On land, we can't put wind turbines larger than 2 MW capacity, mainly because the parts becomes huge as the capacity increase and it is not possible to transport them by road," he said.

"That is the reason why all the high capacity wind mills are installed offshore, as sea route allows easy transportation of such huge machines," he added.

The senior official also hinted at the introduction of a new land allotment policy soon by the Gujarat government to reduce cost of energy generation through solar and wind.

"Both solar and wind projects are land intensive. Our idea is to give government land on lease to the developers at a reasonable rate. This will significantly bring down the investment cost for private players, as they have to just give rent," said Gopal, adding that the policy will be out soon.