Tamil Nadu to step-up on its wind power to meet RPO norms

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The Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission recently allowed Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) to purchase 440.64MW of wind power by floating tenders. The Government of India’s power ministry has increased the target for renewable power obligations (RPO) to 21% by 2022, of which 10.5% must come from solar energy and the remaining 10.5% from other renewable sources. To comply with these norms and meet energy requirements, TANGEDCO has now got approval to install additional wind power mills in Tamil Nadu.

TANGEDCO would be purchasing 440.64MW of wind power through Solar Energy Corporation of India for 25 years, at the billing rate of INR2.91 per unit. This is considerably more profitable than the tariffs finalized with other power companies in the past. An earlier tender floated by TANGEDCO for 500MW saw only 450MW being finalized. Of the 200MW allotted to one company, only 49.5MW was commissioned, and another company has not started the project yet. The growth pace has been quite slow in recent years owing to poor response to TANGEDCO’s tenders to set up new windmills. Further, only 70-75% of the total wind power units in Tamil Nadu are functional, of which some have low capacity and need to be repowered.

Due to the addition of new sub-stations, power transmission has improved and it is estimated that wind power generation & evacuation will be substantially more in the upcoming years. Tamil Nadu is the first state to use GPS in windmills for the new billing scheme, which will make it easier to determine the electricity generated from wind energy on a real-time basis. The power schedule is dependent on the weather forecast, but with the help of GPS, it will now be possible to know about power generation in real time.
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Date: 25.03.2020 | Source: Economic Times

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