India’s largest oil and gas producer ONGC is eyeing generating electricity from wind at its vast offshore acreage as it looks to augment its renewable energy portfolio, its chairman Subhash Kumar said.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has oil and gas fields both in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. That experience of operating in shallow and deep-sea is now being tapped to set up wind turbines to generate electricity that could be wired to land.

“A study for a pilot project in Offshore Wind has already been commissioned for assessing the opportunities in this niche segment,” Kumar said in the company’s latest annual report.

Last year, ONGC signed an MoU with India’s largest electricity generator NTPC to explore setting up offshore wind projects along with the 7,600-km coastline.

Offshore windmills as almost twice as efficient as onshore wind turbines. But the cost per MW for offshore turbines is higher because of stronger structures and foundations needed in marine environments.  The government has set a target of 5 GW of offshore wind installations by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030.

ONGC, Kumar said, is pursuing opportunities in the renewable energy field in India and abroad.  “We added another 6 MW of solar capacity taking our total installed capacity (of solar energy) in excess of 30 MW,” he said. “Our total installed capacity in renewable space has exceeded 325 MW and... We have a long distance to cover as we are targeting 10 GW of installed renewable capacity by 2030.”