Govt plan to repower old wind power plants could attract Rs 40,000 crore investments

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s (MNRE) new draft policy for repowering old wind power plants will increase wind power generation in the country and this will kickstart investments worth Rs 40,000 crore over 3-5 years, said a CRISIL report. It said that the investment will rise by three times the average annual wind power capex seen in the past four fiscal years.

The ministry recently issued the revised draft of the National Repowering Policy for Wind Power Projects, 2022, as most of the old wind power projects with sub megawatt scale wind turbines are yet to be repowered. “This may lead to replacement of ~5 GW of old windmills with new wind power plants with 2x more generation ability,” said Ankit Hakhu, Director, CRISIL Ratings. “Their viability looks good because such projects can generate double-digit returns at tariffs of ~Rs 4 per unit for the incremental capacity,” he added.