India issues RFEOI for first commercial offshore wind farm with 1 GW capacity
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The National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), part of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of the Government of India, has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for the country's first commercial offshore wind farm, to be located off the coast of Gujarat in the west, and have a generation capacity of 1 GW.
Requests are invited from global entities with experience installing offshore wind projects with over 500 MW capacity, or Indian manufacturers or developers of onshore wind projects that have installed at least 500 MW in consortia with global offshore wind manufacturers or developers. Interested parties must also have an average annual turnover of INR5 billion (US$76.8 million) in the last three years.
Responses must be submitted by 25 May 2018. For more information, see the Business Opportunity.
The proposed location of the wind farm is 23-40km from Pipavav port in the Gulf of Khambhat. The site is approximately 400km2.
NIWE is currently undertaking a wind resource assessment of the area, using a LiDAR-based monitoring system. Full year LiDAR data will be available by November this year. The authority has also made several studies available to prospective bidders for consultation, including the pre-feasibility study, grid integration study and a Met Ocean study.
This tender kickstarts the 5 GW offshore wind tenders that the New and Renewable Energy Minister announced in December. Neither the Ministry or NIWE have yet published a timeline for the remaining 4 GW tenders, supposedly all scheduled to take place in 2018.
Following the announcement, the FOWIND (Facilitating Offshore Wind in India) consortium published a report setting out a timeline for the installation of this capacity, recommending that the government aim to commission 500 MW by 2022, between 2 and 2.5 GW by 2027, and reach 5 GW between 2028 and 2032.
Though the EOI does not detail when the wind farm should be brought into operation, the fact that 1 GW is being tendered indicates that this timeline is not being followed.
The FOWIND consortium contains the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), DNV GL, the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL), the World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE) and the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE).
Overall, the tender is driven by the government's aim to install 175 GW renewable energy capacity by 2022. When announcing the offshore wind tenders, the Energy Minister confidently predicted that the country would surpass this, achieving at least 200 GW by 2022.
