After Interim Budget, govt invites bids for offshore wind projects

The bids invited are for four blocks of 1 GW each on an open access basis, for the development of offshore wind power projects off the coast of Tamil Nadu, through international competitive bidding

The government has invited bids for the development of offshore wind energy with a total capacity of 4 gigawatts (GW). This comes after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her Budget speech on February 1 that the government has decided to offer viability gap funding (VGF) for offshore wind projects up to 1 GW.

The offshore wind energy bids have been invited through Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a Government of India undertaking under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). The bids are being called after obtaining all necessary environmental clearances. SECI has already issued a notice inviting tender.

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The bids invited are for four blocks of 1 GW each on an open access basis, for the development of offshore wind power projects off the coast of Tamil Nadu, through international competitive bidding. Senior MNRE officials said that given that studies on offshore wind projects will take a maximum of five years, an operational project is likely to come up only by 2030 or later.

On September 28, Moneycontrol was the first to report that India's first offshore wind projects will come up across the Tamil Nadu coast.

Under the arrangement, the developers who win the bid for each block will set up 1 GW offshore wind energy capacity and sell electricity directly to consumers under the open access regime. The government, however, made it clear that no viability gap funding (VGF) will be given under the open access bids, and that the renewable energy generated will be sold to entities such as industries, which are currently in the high-tariff band.

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Offshore wind power is a type of renewable energy that harnesses the wind's force at sea to generate electricity. The electricity is then transmitted to the grid or onshore network through undersea cables buried in the seafloor.

"The advantages of offshore wind are many. It does away with constraints of availability of land; it has a higher Capacity Utilization Function (CUF) - approaching almost 50 percent.  Further, the efficiencies of off-shore wind turbines are higher than those of on-shore wind turbines; each turbine is of 15 MW," the government said in a statement.

The Union government's push to increase wind energy capacity aligns with India's commitment to combat climate change and reduce global warming, aiming to achieve 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, with wind energy contributing approximately 140 GW.

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Despite possessing a 7,600 km coastline and significant offshore wind energy potential, India has been slow in developing offshore wind projects.

But now, the government plans to tap into offshore wind projects totalling 70 GW along the coasts of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Seabed lease tenders for a trajectory of 37 GW are scheduled to be issued by 2030.