SunEdison, which entered the wind power sector globally only a few months back, plans multi-Gigawatt wind projects in India, the company’s Asia-Pacific head, Pashupathy Gopalan, said.
In interactions with several wind turbine manufacturers, Business Line has learnt that SunEdison plans about 3,000 MW of wind projects over the next few years. Confirming this, Gopalan said that while the company is not targeting any particular number, it could do more if policies were favourable. The company has said that it was open to both putting up green-field projects as well as acquiring assets.
Today, SunEdison gave a commitment to Prime Minister Modi that it would put up 15,200 MW of solar and wind projects between now and 2022. The divide between them would be skewed towards solar, given that SunEdison is a global solar major, but Gopalan said that wind could be even a third of the committed figure.
Convergence
He sees a convergence of solar and wind economics, in terms of capital costs and tariffs. Wind power plants produce more electricity per MW of installed capacity, but solar has advantages of being less location-specific and modular—you can go on adding capacity at the same site.
“We don’t have to be specific in our planning,” he said, when asked how much of the 15,200 MW would be wind.