The central government and various state governments will award contracts to set up another 6,500 MW (6.5 GW) of wind energy projects in the next three months, the ministry of renewable energy said.
Combined with the 3 GW awarded in the first nine months of this fiscal year, this will take the total amount of wind energy awarded by government agencies to 9.5 GW in the year ending March 2018, the ministry said.
India is supposed to have 60 GW of wind-power capacity by 2022, up from about 33 GW at present.
In comparison, China added 19.3 GW of wind power generation capacity in 2016 to reach a total capacity of 149 GW.
This year, the Indian government has so far held two auctions of 1,000 MW each, while the Gujarat and Tamil Nadu governments have given out contracts for 500 MW each, taking the total capacity auctioned to 3 GW.
Auctions for another 6,500 MW — including 6 GW from the center — are in the pipeline, the ministry said.
On January 16, there will be another round of auctions by the central government for a capacity of 2 GW, followed by more auctions for an additional 4 GW before the end of March, the government said.
In addition, Maharashtra will finalize auctions for 500 MW by January 20.
India moved from the earlier investment-based incentive system for wind power projects to an auction system based on lowest feed-in tariff similar to the solar auctions in February this year.
The earlier system allowed companies to deduct any money they invested in wind projects from their taxable income.
This route had led to many companies spending money on setting up wind power projects. However, the system also encouraged investment over production, and investors often did not care as much about the efficiency and productivity of their assets as they normally would have.
