India's capacity
to generate wind energy dropped by a whopping 43 per cent in July, unexpectedly
taking the industry as the monsoon months are the best for generation every
year, official data shows.
Overall
generation of renewable energy is 24 per cent lower than last year's July.
Provisional capacity to produce renewable energy is 12.242 million units (MU)
in July, down from 16.177 MU in 2019. Wind saw the largest decrease, from MU
11,343 last year to MU 6,490 in 2020.
Total power
generation also dropped year-on-year between April and July, from 52.421 MU in
2019 to 50.550 MU in 2020, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA)
results.
According to
industry figures, the monsoon months between June and September are the chief
wind power generation months, providing almost 85% of annual production. This
period is much shorter at around 120 days than that of solar, which usually
remains active for at least 280 days in a year.
Industry sources
have confirmed that this year's wind levels were unusually weak but will
potentially pick up in August and September. According to reports, the central
government took notice of the problem and began to obtain information from
states and developers about the troubling decline. They said that, so far this year,
additional capacity in wind was less at 2,000 MW while in solar it was 8,000 MW
until June this year.
For several
states, including Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the data shows a 50 per
cent decline for wind production. For the second year in a row, Andhra Pradesh
wind and solar production were down. In July this year, wind generation in the
state stood at 718 million units and solar at 351 million units versus 1474 MU
of wind and 451 MU of solar power at the same time last year.
Wind speed has
been a concern for the last two months, a company official said. “There is anobserved
shift in the trend of wind speed. The number of days with strong wind speed has
been declining. While there were 30 days with high wind speed in a year ago,
today we only have 15 days. But, the wind speed during those 15 days is
high," the official said.
Another official
indicated that the wind generation has shown progress in the initial days of
August and is predicted to pick up in the second monsoon surge. Experts believe
that looking at the monsoon season's first two months gives an incomplete
picture, and agree that the numbers will run better over the next two months.
"Windenergy generation during the Monsoon months is very seasonal and concentrated.
Therefore, two months of combined generation isn't a reasonable predictor for
evaluating the pattern, "said Debasish Mishra, Deloitte India's pioneer in
energy resources and industrial goods.
While the total
figures have seen a decline, it has not been as extreme as solar power plants
have been included in the "critical" facilities division of the
Centre, and have continued to function as before. Mishra said traditional power
plants could see a great deal more of a decline.
It is
evident that renewable energy plants, which have the requisite run status, have
been less affected due to a decline in demand ranked by Covid-19 as opposed to
thermal coal.
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