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in India, contributing around 45.5% of the total renewable energy in- the key challenges. Other challenges are :
stalled capacity as on July 2019. Private sector plays a major role in
the wind installations. Balancing and Storage: Wind and solar Power are intermittent
The national Offshore Wind Policy released to tap potential along in nature as their output depends on external conditions, such as sun-
India’s 7600 km coastline. The nIWE (national Institute of Wind En- shine or wind. The load balancing can be provided by flexible con-
ergy) has released Expression of Interest (EOI) for 1 GW of offshore ventional energy sources like thermal power plant, as it constitutes
wind capacities. India has also released the first of its kind national major share of energy mix.
Wind-Solar Hybrid Policy in May 2018. 160 MW tender was released However, uneconomical cost and challenges in practical implemen-
for Wind-Solar-Battery hybrid (40 MW wind, 120 MW solar, 20 MWh tation make it a difficult option. Storage technologies like thermal
battery component). SECI and World Bank are investing USd 400 mn storage, battery storage and energy storage are gaining momentum
for Solar-Wind Hybrid, Floating PV, Solar with Storage. and have long-term economic significance in India. The most common
Government’s policies like repowering of wind power projects have type of energy storage is pumped storage hydroelectricity. Energy
helped promote optimum utilisation of wind energy sources. as per storage faces issues of economic cost and commercial operation. GOI
Indian Renewable Energy development agency (IREda), an addition- is planning for a large-scale storage linked renewable energy projects
al interest rate rebate of 0.25% over and above the interest rate re- in future to integrate power storage in mainstream grid.
bates would be available to the new wind projects for repowering.
nIWE, Chennai and state nodal agencies and institutes, are carrying grid integration: RE grid integration poses several challenges
out wind resource assessment in the country. like intermittency, controlling the real – time dynamics, voltage and
power quality issues. Smart grid technologies coupled with IoT (In-
Bio-energy: India offers an ideal environment for Biomass produc- ternet of Things) is required to address the grid integration. This re-
tion. The vast agricultural potential also makes available huge agro-res- quires huge infrastructure in terms of upgrading current Indian trans-
idues to meet the energy needs. With an estimated production of about mission and distribution networks.
460 mn tons of agricultural waste every year, Biomass is capable of The government is introducing auction-based ancillary services,
supplementing the coal to the tune of about 260 mn tons. This can flexibility in conventional generation, Renewable Energy Manage-
result in a saving of about InR 250 bn, every year . India has estimated ment Centre (REMCs), load and generation forecasting mechanisms,
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potential of 19.5 GW of biomass and currently a total capacity of 9.8 GW grid frequency control by deviation Settlement Mechanism (dSM) to
of grid-connected bio-power has been installed as on July 2019 against address the grid integration issues of RE sources. Moreover, Green
a target of 10 GW bio-power by 2022. This includes 9.13 GW from ba- Energy corridors are being developed in India for evacuation of RE
gasse cogeneration, 0.67 GW from non-bagasse cogeneration and 0.14 from generation points to the load centres by creating inter-state and
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GW from waste to energy . The share of bio power in renewable energy intrastate transmission infrastructure.
mix as on 31.07.2019 has been 12%.
need for quality: Quality development and execution for the
Hydro energy: Small hydro which has capacity less than 25 MW current projects is required. However, there is less skill manpower in
represents 4604.8 MW as on July 2019. The share of small hydro in the India as well as fierce competitive environment in private industries,
renewable energy mix has been 5.6 % as on 31.07.2019. The Govern- which need to be tackled in large scale. The competition in the sec-
ment has already planned to include large hydropower plant projects tor has risen where tariffs reached record low of InR 2.43 per unit in
to be part of RE. at present, hydropower tariff is expensive compared december 2017 and the same level was reached in September 2018
to other forms which are largely due to high infrastructure costs and again. The large integrated players are in a better position with higher
moderation of flood. returns compared to the smaller contractors. Government is working
comprehensively on skill development by providing training but In-
Key Challenges volvement of the private players in providing training is utmost for
this aspect.
availability of low cost finance and technology transfer are some of

EnErgising sustainablE & ProsPErous FuturE 39