India is a country where electricity is hard to come by. Nearly 40 percent of residences don’t have power, according to the World Bank.
For many urban dwellers with power, blackouts are common.
The wind energy market grew 22 percent in 2008 helped by government incentives
To address the energy shortfall, India’s three-year goal is to sharply increase energy generation. The country hopes to have 225,000 MW of energy capacity in place by 2012, compared with 140,000 MW today.
Billions of dollars will be poured into transmission and distribution infrastructure – including wind generation.
Already the country is the fifth in the world in terms of wind-power capacity. Plants capable of producing 9,600 MW of wind power are in place – a big jump from the 2,980 MW of capacity installed in 2005, when wind made up the vast majority of the 3.2 percent of India’s renewable electricity.
Experts say the success of wind energy in India is due to government incentives. Growth in the market was 22 percent last year. It will be interesting to see where it comes in this year.
According to the Indian Wind Energy Association, the country has 65,000 MW of potential capacity.
