The Gujarat Government on Thursday announced a fresh Wind Power Policy to expedite and encourage development of wind power generation activities in the State. The previous policy had come to an end in March 2013.
Terming the new policy as an ambitious plan to make Gujarat’s 1,600-km long coastline as a prosperous base for the development of energy sector, Gujarat’s Energy and Petrochemical Minister Saurabh Patel said that Gujarat was aiming to attract big scale investments from prospective investors from across country and abroad.
Giving details about the development Patel said that in 2001 Gujarat had installed capacity of wind energy generation of 150 MW, which currently reached 3,147 MW. This new policy is expected be an added fillip to the activities concerning wind energy installations in the State, he added.
As per the new Wind Energy Policy, the developers of wind power plants will be able to sell the electricity to Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam limited (GUVNl), the State owned electricity company, or can sell it to any other company holding licence for electricity distribution. Wind energy generators will be able to sell it to the buyers at `4.15 per unit, which in the outgoing policy was fixed at `3.56 per unit. The new rates will be in effect for next 25 years.
In order to encourage the developers the new Wind Energy Policy has exempted the electricity generated from windmills from paying the mandatory electricity duty. Besides the wind energy developers will be allowed to use the electricity in their own factories if located in Gujarat.
The new policy has laid out clear provisions for allotment of State’s vast barren land tracts for the wind energy installations by the developers.