Gone with wind: cancelled projects scatter Karnataka's renewable energy targets.

Karnataka’s intentions of meeting the Centre's renewable energy targets appears to be taking as many steps backward as forward-currently, as against a commissioned capacity of 5,514.31MW, proposals worth 5,064.15MW have been cancelled. This is because a substantially high number of applications for setting up wind, hydroelectric and solar power projects have been cancelled for various reasons by the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd. (KREDL), an organisation that works under the State's Energy Department to promote renewable energy.

Of the 22,219.70 MW allotted capacity in renewable energy, KREDL has cancelled applications for the generation of 5,064.15MW, most of which were for wind energy (4,244MW). The commissioned capacity for wind energy currently stands at 3,071.64 MW.

“Sometimes, they don’t have enough land and at other times, they don’t have clearances from the Forest Department. There have also been proposals to set-up wind farms in places where there is simply no potential to produce energy from wind,” said a KREDL official.

While the most modest requirement for wind energy farms is four or five acres of land for producing 1MW of energy, other infrastructure such as the access or approach to farm and the ability to position transmission lines also have to be factored, the official explained.

THE HINDU