Wind energy potential in India

Though located in the tropics, India is endowed with substantial wind resources because of its unique geographical location which gets fully exposed to both the south-west and north-east monsoon winds. The westerly winds of the south-west monsoons provide bulk of the wind potential. Areas with mean annual wind speed exceeding 18 k mph and areas with mean annual power density greater than 140 W/m2 have been identified using the wind data collected by the wind monitoring project funded by the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES). Seasonal variations in wind speed at selected locations are discussed as also the frequency distribution of hourly wind speed. Annual capacity factors for 250 kW wind electric generators have been calculated for several typical locations. A good linear correlation has been found between mean annual wind speed and mean annual capacity factor. A method is described for assessing wind potential over an extended region where adequate data is available. It is shown that the combined wind energy potential over five selected areas of limited extent in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu alone amounts to 22,000 MW under the assumption of 20 per cent land availability for installing wind farms. For a higher percentage of land availability, the potential will be correspondingly higher. (author). 12 refs., 6 figs., 3 tabs