Thursday, June 28, 2012

Wind turbine manufacturers urge Jaya to stop TANGEDCO move to remove power banking facility

Chennai:
Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association (IWTMA) urged the Chief Minister to intervene in a move by the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) to remove the power banking facility.
Secretary General of IWTMA, D V Giri in a letter to the CM, sought her intervention in giving directions to TANGEDCO not to remove the banking facility and call for a stakeholders meeting.
Power banking works very much like cash banking, wherein wind power generators feed the electricity produced by their mills to the State grid and draw it for captive use within a year.
According to IWTMA, Tamil Nadu leads the country with a 40 per cent share of the wind energy capacity (7000 MW). All the leading global and national wind energy players have made Tamil Nadu their operating head quarters and have invested over `2,500 crore in creating over 8,000 MW production capacity with world-class manufacturing, marketing, research and development facility.
The private sector has made TN the number one player in the wind energy category and supported by their contribution of over 3,000 MW of wind energy the state managed to tide over the power crisis over the last two months.

“It is rather sad and ironic that while the private sector have created the bulk of wind energy capacity and the industry is investing in introducing higher capacity and more efficient wind turbines the State power distribution body is indulging in lame blame games which does not abode well for all, especially the consumers who are forced to put up with power outages frequently, we hope the State Government will intervene and help create a policy ambience that benefits all stake holders”, he said.
Besides IWTMA has urged the state and Union goverment to adopt wind as a preferred sources of energy.
IWTMA suggestions:
1.    With over 10 global and national wind energy manufacturers having set up base in Tamil Nadu, it is high time the State Government adopted Wind as the preferred source of energy and actively participate in setting up a –Centre of Excellence for Wind Technology in the State. 
2.    IWTMA and its member bodies provide complete end to end solutions in the sector, which means not only manufacturing the equipments and turbines but also calls for sustained research in identifying good wind catchment locations, creating local power infrastructure, enabling power evacuation to the closest grid, building sub-stations, generating local employment opportunities, promoting green technology and more. 

3.     This is a category where the FUEL costs is ZERO and is perpetual; contrast this with the recent Central Government subsidy on imported fossil fuel and the withdrawal of the Accelerated Depreciation facility (tax deferral scheme), while the whole world is tuning into green source of energy creation, we seem to have a policy myopia when it comes to clean energy generation.

4.    While the industry has actively contributed crores of rupees to the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) as well as to the State Infrastructure Development Cost (IDC), there seems to be no information or action on the deployment of the funds in creating the infrastructure that can help the Wind Energy sector scale up faster to meet the country’s growing energy needs. 

5.    After more than 20 years of proven Wind energy technology in building over 17000 MW of power generation in the country, it is time the Central and State Governments wake up to this potential to create progressive policy initiatives, invests in R&D and technology in multi-megawatt turbines, open up off-shore that can be tapped into for generating clean energy and get government bodies and state electricity boards to participate in setting up large captive Wind Farms (over 95% of current investments in the sector is from the private sector) 

6.    Lastly, it is time the Accelerated Depreciation turns to enthusiastic Appreciation and the Wind energy is given its rightful place to harness this clean, free and perpetual fuel to power the country.

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