The Chemical Industries Association has urged the Government of India to work towards setting up offshore wind power plants in India. Offshore wind farms are those constructed in water bodies to harness wind power.
"India is facing an impending energy crisis due to the necessity to import around 110 million tonnes of coal, around 185 milllion tonnes of crude oil and 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas every year. Considering that India production of these resources has almost become stagnant, the country's import of these products will almost double in the next 7-8 years. India has to urgently look for appropriate indigenous energy sources and offshore wind power is an appropriate energy source opportunity," the Association has said in an appeal to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister of costal states.
"India has around 7000 kilometers of coastline which provide enormous opportunity for the country to set up several off shore wind power projects. States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat have big opportunities for setting up off shore wind projects," the president of the Association, P K N Panicker said.
"While India has installed capacity of around 18,000MW of on shore wind power, the capacity utilization is only around 40% every year due to lack of wind speed during several months. Even if the country increases onshore wind capacity, this would continue," the appeal said.
Europe is focusing in a big way on offshore wind power projects with capacity of around 6,000 MW built over the last few years. India should immediately seize this offshore wind power opportunity and take steps to build 1 lakh MW of offshore wind projects in the next 15 years, the appeal said.
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