The world’s fourth-largest wind power market is expected to add nearly 20.2 GW of new capacity between 2021 and 2025, according to the latest report from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and MEC Intelligence (MEC+).
This would boost India’s 39.2GW wind market by nearly 50% and is a clear signal that the market is bouncing back after a slowdown in recent years, according to India Wind Energy Market Outlook 2025.
Although 2020 was originally forecast to be a break-out year for wind power in India with a large pipeline and multiple policy interventions to ease bottlenecks, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was much more severe than anticipated. Forecasts expected the country to install 3.3 GW of wind power in 2020, but ultimately only 1.1 GW was installed, with the remaining capacity either being pushed into 2021 or dropped by developers.
However, the report finds that the pace of new installations is likely to double over the next two to three years compared to the average annual installations since 2017 when the market began to slow down.
India currently has a pipeline of projects totalling 10.3 GW in both central and state tenders, which are expected to drive installations until 2023. The market post-2023 will likely be driven by nearly 10 GW of new capacity awarded to wind projects.
Going forward, greater consensus and coordination between central and state governments around wind targets, supply chain utilisation, and the definition of a clear market roadmap are some of the key actions needed to put India on a pathway to meet its decarbonisation and renewable energy goals, the report found.
