China & India - Rapid growth in electricity demand is becoming the main driver for wind energy growth in both countries

Despite the economic slowdown, India’s wind energy sector is expected to continue its growth trajectory at around 25 per cent per annum driven by a strong requirement for enhancing power capacity, according to officials of the Global World Energy Council (GWEC).

“The recession has caused a bit of a confused pause while one figures out what the credit market is like. It will certainly move larger companies to buy out smaller ones, which are heavily dependent on finance for their wind energy projects,” Steve Sawyer, Secretary General, GWEC told to this website’s newspaper over the phone from Belgium.

He pointed out that both China and India were witnessing a rapid growth of demand in electricity, which was becoming the main driver for growth of the sector in the two countries.

In 2007-08, India Inc witnessed an addition of 1,700 mega watts (MW) of new installed wind energy capacity, with more than half the installations located in Tamil Nadu.

D V Giri, Chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association, has projected a 1,300 MW wind energy capacity addition in the current fiscal, and said, “No wind turbine manufacturer will incur losses. There will only be a drop in profitability.” The current wind energy potential in the country is estimated to be 65,000 MW.

The sector is asking the Government for a removal of the cap on the installed wind capacity of 49 MW to 5,000 MW under the generation based incentive scheme for entry of FDI into the sector. “Banks are not lending money for new projects. This has to change,” stated Sawyer.

He pointed out that globally Green stocks had taken a big hit when the credit crisis started but had recovered because the fundamentals of the industry were strong.

For more information, please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net