ENARADA, Bangalore, July 10, 2013:
Members of Parliament, mainly from the coastal states, will be gathering in Bangalore on July 13-14, 2013 for the first-ever Parliamentarians meet on ‘Wind Power Industry in India: Enabling Future Growth’.
The meeting will be inaugurated by Mr. J. D Seelam, State Minister of Finance, Government of India and Prof. B. K. Chandrashekhar, Chairman, Bangalore Climate Change Initiative, Karnataka.
Representatives from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, state governments, industry and sector experts will participate in the meeting. The meeting is intended to bring together Parliamentarians and inform them about the recent issues and challenges of the wind energy sector, to initiate policy dialogues and parliamentary interventions in the near future.
The meeting is organised by Climate Parliament, a global network of cross-party parliamentarians working to promote renewable energy. The Climate Parliament India Steering Committee consists of Mr Milind Deora, Mr Rajeev Shukla, Mr Rajeev Pratap Rudy, Dr Sanjay Jaiswal, Mr Jayant Chaudhary, Mr Kalikesh Singh Deo, Mr P D Rai and Dr Botcha Jhansi Lakshmi.
The Climate Parliament MPs met the Prime Minister of India to discuss key issues to achieve the targets of Renewables, under the National Action Plan on Climate Change and the Twelfth Five Year Plan.
Today, wind energy contributes nearly 70% of the grid interactive power from renewable energy in the country with more than 19 GW of total installed capacity and is likely to maintain its status as the highest renewable energy contributor in the future as well. In the next 12th five year plan, 50% of the upcoming target of 30,000 MW has been envisaged to be from Wind Power alone. The Indian Wind industry has seen an enviable trajectory of growth over the past few years, a growth attributable to aggressive policy incentives and support extended by the Government of India
The Wind Industry is now undergoing a major transition. Stakeholders have started debating about the capability of the Indian Wind Industry, as it stands today, to sustain itself.
The Government of India has in the past one year, has withdrawn some of the major financial benefits that it offered earlier. This is, despite issues like transmission, land availability, revenue instability which still plagued the industry.
The growth of the industry showed a major slump when the total installations in 2012-2013 was half of the total installations in 2011-2012. A further, slump in installations may not only jeopardize the overall renewable energy targets of 2017 but also, greatly hamper the investor confidence in the market.
The meet organised will raise awareness amongst Parliamentarians regarding wind energy issues by engaging with different stake holders in the sector and will identify key issues for parliamentary interventions in the near future.
