India retains fifth position in global wind energy market

Despite poor pace of capacity addition in the states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra , India retained its position in top five world wind energy markets in 2012 . India remained third largest market for new turbines in 2012 with capacity addition of 2441 mw, revealed World Wind Energy Report 2012. World’s wind turbine capacity addition grew at 19% to 44,609 mw, which is lowest in more than a decade.

“The Indian wind market has a very good future potential, however, policy uncertainties and unpaid electricity bills have damaged investors’ confidence,” noted World Wind Energy Association, which is expecting China, India, Europe and North America to drive the growth in coming years. India added 2827 mw of wind power generation capacity in 2011.

Indian Wind Power Association is claiming that withdrawal of accelerated depreciation benefit has resulted in lesser attraction for wind energy among the investors. Earlier, high networth individuals including filmstars and cricketers invested in wind turbines enthusiastically to avail relief in tax payments.

Last year, Iceland joined the club of wind power producers as 100th member. Out of world’s 2,82,275 mw of wind power installations spread across 100 countries, 73% of the turbines are located in top five countries – China, USA, Germany, Spain, and India. Denmark has highest installed wind power capacity per person. Per inhabitant, it has an installed wind capacity of 752 watt. USA ranks 12th, with close to 200 watt per person, and China ranks 36th, with 56 watt per person and India is 52nd with 15 watt per person, which is below the global average.

By land area, two small countries, Guadeloupe and Aruba, have the top position, again followed by Denmark and Germany. However, world’s largest markets China, USA and India do not figure even in 50- 25. This geographical distribution reveals that especially the countries with large land mass have still a huge potential which they could use to harvest wind power. India ranks 32th. The global average is currently 1,9 kW/sqkm.

Source: World Wind Energy Association