Legislation on Renewables in the Electricity Bill
A conference was
organised by Assocham on Nov 29-30 in collaboration with Maxmueller Bhawan on
Wind Energy. The Conference was inaugurated by M Kannappan, Minister of State
(independent Charge) for Nonconventional Energy Sources. 
Amongst others the Conference had the participation of the German Ambassador to
India, Heimo Richter; Ravi Prakash Khemka, Chairman NEPC India Ltd.; Rakesh Bakshi,
Managing Director, Vestas RRB India Ltd.; Tulsi R Tanti, Managing Director, Suzlon
Energy Ltd.; N K Bansal, Professor, Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute
of Technology, New Delhi; P S Bami, former chairman NTPC and Jami Hossain, Renewable
Energy Specialist from Winrock International India.
The conference focussed on identifying barriers to development of wind energy
in India and finding a way forward. Several technical presentations were made
in the conference. Kannappan in his speech mentioned of the new developments likely
to take place on the policy front. He spoke of a target of 10,000 MW set by MNES
to be met by Non-conventional Energy Sources by the year 2012. He also said the
concerns of the Ministry in the context of Electricity Bill 2001 (Now 2002) have
been conveyed to the Ministry of Power and that perhaps the Bill will include
a special legislation on renewables making it necessary for the utilities to have
at least 10% renewables in their energy mix. The Bill is likely to come before
the Parliament in the forthcoming session. He also summarised the various initiatives
of the government on renewable energy.
"I will look forward to the outcome of the conference", said Kannappan inaugurating
the conference.
The German Ambassador to India, Mr. H. Richter emphasised the key role of the
government in giving a fillip to wind energy production for which attractive subsidies
and incentives would have to be provided to promoters. He offered German assistance
to Indian entrepreneurs in wind energy programmes.
Speaking in the inaugural session, Rakesh Bakshi said it had taken nearly 20 years
to indigenise the technology that was primarily meant for European conditions.
This, he said, required innovative solutions.
Ravi Prakash Khemka echoed similar sentiments and emphasized on the role played
by the Government in promoting this activity in India. He also, praised the Danish
government for grant of 20 MW of windfarms to catalyse wind energy development
in nIndia back in 1990. Khemka urged the German Ambassador to provide grant to
the extent of 100-200 MW in order to further catalyse the development.
Tulsi R. Tanti said since wind energy is not affected by changes in fuel costs
due to the global political uncertainties or otherwise, it more or less freezes
the cost of power and acts as a buffer for corporate, entrepreneurs and even to
large utilities. For the 10th plan, the goal set for wind energy is around 6000
MW. To achieve this target the renewables programme needs support from investors,
manufacturers, financial institutions, government and most importantly SEB's and
utilities.
Several presentations were made during the conference.
Jami Hossain in his presentation focussed on issues on aspects related to large
scale utilisation of wind energy. He emphasized on the need for projects approach
for high perpormance large windfarm projects, which according to him, by sheer
scale of economy, removed several barriers that smaller projects faced."Think
big - think Gigawatt - and everything falls into place", he said conveying a message
to the participants. He felt large windfarms allowed one to comfortably look into
wind resource assessment with 'state-of-the-art' technologies and techniques such
as GIS, sattelite based data and optimisations on a GIS platform. Jami Hossain
also oultined the activities of the Wind Energy Development Secretariat (WEDS)
set up by Winrock International India to facilitate development of large windfarm
projects.
Rakesh Bakshi speaking in the same session said that indeed one was now looking
at large windfarms of the order of 50-100 MW and that WEDS was an interesting
proposal for the industry.
Mr. Peter Sewitz, Director Programmes, Max Mueller Bhavan highlighted the advantages
of Indo-German cooperation in wind energy utilization and Prof. N.K.Bansal, IIT,
Delhi spoke of the recent technological advances in wind power.
There was active participation from the industry in the conference.
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