Just drive around Lamba or the ridges around Jamnagar, and there they are. Towers, short blades, rotating at a speed that seems quite leisurely compared to their contemporaries. Some were erected prior to 2000. There are even a few with ratings of 225 kW, less than one-tenth of what can be generated from a similar land parcel by today’s technology.
This is the repowering opportunity in a nutshell.
Land is the resource, not the turbine
India's first-generation wind farms developed the best sites. This made complete sense back then. The implication of this is that India's best wind resources are found under some of its oldest installed capacity.
NIWE has estimated India's national repowering potential to stand at 25,406 MW using only turbines that have been built under 2 MW. This figure is based on NIWE’s clear logic - anything running below 15% capacity utilization factor is ripe for replacement and on a good site, generation from these turbines can multiply by 4 to 12 times following repowering. Not a misprint.
What was altered in 2023
The MNRE junked its 2016 policy in December 2023 and came out with the National Repowering and Life Extension Policy. Turbines less than 2 MW come under it. Then there are machines beyond their certified life and voluntary repowering when the project goes beyond 15 years. The generation should increase by at least 1.5 times in three years – a reasonable safeguard.
This is being funded by IREDA, PFC and REC, with IREDA giving 0.25% rebate to the lending rate. The PPA period extends for an extra two years to make for the down time.
But then it's worth mentioning the past history here. In 2016 and onwards till 2020, no project availed of the rebate under the 2016 policy. Policy is one thing, projects another.
What place Gujarat actually holds
The state has already reached the milestone of having a wind power capacity of 16,086 MW, the biggest in India. This is mostly new. But the Saurashtra and Kutch regions are those exact installations for which this policy was intended.
Gujarat's stance on repowering is more restricted compared to that of the central government. The state permits repowering of turbines of 1 MW and below with no specific policy for Gujarat but the general guidelines applicable for GEDA. Tamil Nadu allows combining of wind and solar in a repowering project and even assists in increasing voltage levels in these turbines.
This is what makes repowering slow here in spite of economic sense.
Is it worth doing then?
It comes down to three factors, actually.
Real wind potential at 120 m height, not the 40 m estimates that your project was based on. Your evacuation capacity – with repowered farms able to evacuate three or four times as much power on infrastructure that was laid during the 1990s and where reconstructing the pooling substation and line is usually the most expensive line in the budget. And whether you can aggregate; single-owner repowering simply does not work. Clusters do.
And there, the execution trumps the marketing. Wind turbine manufacturers will certainly provide you with the latest 3 MW platforms with pleasure. Somebody needs to take out the old foundations, widen the road to accommodate a double-sized crane, and build an evacuation system for it. The companies such as KP Energy work in that space in Gujarat – the EPCC and Balance of Plant one, where such projects either succeed or fail quietly.
Old wind turbines in Gujarat are not faulty. They are simply sitting on the land that is much more valuable than they generate now.
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