India - Uniform long-term policy for windpower sector needed: IWPA

Indian Wind Power Association (IWPA) today urged the Centre and Power Ministry to formulate a uniform long-term national wind energy policy that would make sale of wind energy easy and affordable within the country.

In a resolution adopted at its 13th annual general meeting, IWPA said sale of wind power from one state to another in India was to be made easily affordable by having a uniform intra-state and inter-state transfer policy.

IWPA wanted the government to direct the utilities to purchase at least 15 per cent of their energy requirement from renewable sources of energy and of which, wind energy should be 10 per cent, IWPA Chairman-elect K Kasturirangaian said.

Appealing the Centre to provide privileged treatment to wind energy, considering its 'pollution free' nature and also the lowest gestation period, he said wind farm developers should be exempted from power cuts as they made a huge investment taking high risk.

Since many of the orders passed by Regulatory Commission were not followed by state electricity boards, resulting in legal proceedings taking considerable time, a suitable mechanism by which these legal issues were solved within a reasonable time should be introduced, he said