India - Vestas to make wind power generators

Vestas RRB India on Monday inaugurated a site in Sriperumbudur where it will invest Rs 100 crore to make wind electric generator blades at first, and then wind electric generators. The factory is expected to start production in six months. In the first phase of the project, Vestas will invest Rs 35 crore to make the blades. The company’s managing director Rakesh Bakshi said that it is the first time that the technology provider, Denmark-based Vestas, has allowed the manufacture of blades in a developing country. Vestas India provides the whole range of services in the area of harnessing wind energy for power generation. A domestic manufacturing site for blades is expected to help the company reduce the installation cost as well as the lead time for the procurement, said Bakshi.

He estimated that domestic manufacture of blades would bring down its cost by 10-15 per cent, as compared to the price paid today to import the same. The lead time to get the blades is expected to come down to 40 days from the current level of 120 days. Vestas India’s manufacturing plan has come on the heels of upbeat forecast from Bakshi for the wind power generation sector. India has harnessed about 3,850 MW of wind power, of which more than half was harnessed in Tamil Nadu (the total installed capacity in India was about 1.11 lakh MW in September 2004). Bakshi said that the central government had estimated that wind power potential in India stood at about 45,000 MW. The investment required for each MW of wind power was about Rs 4.5 crore to Rs 5 crore, the same as that required for each MW of thermal power, he added. Wind power generation is spared the challenges posed by a fluctuation in the price of carbon-based fuel, and is easier on the environment. Bakshi said that Vestas India would make 350 sets of blades in the first year, a number that would double to 700 sets the year after.