The Government of India has invited bids for the development of off-shore wind energy of a total capacity of 4 GW. The bids invited are for four blocks of 1 GW each on open access basis, for development of offshore wind power projects off the coast of Tamil Nadu, through international competitive bidding. Under this arrangement, the developers who win the bid for each block will set up 1 GW off-shore wind energy capacity and sell electricity directly to consumers under the open access regime. No Viability Gap Funding (VGF) is given under the open access bids, and the Renewable Energy generated will be sold to entities such as industries which are currently in the high-tariff band.
The advantages of off-shore wind are many. It does away with constraints of availability of land; it has higher Capacity Utilization Function (CUF) – approaching almost 50%. Further, the efficiencies of off-shore wind turbines are higher than those of on-shore wind turbines; each turbine is of 15 MW.
