Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, New Delhi-110003
India is blessed with natural meteorological and topographical settings that are conducive to a level of wind velocities that is suitable for power generation. The estimated potential for wind power generation in india now stands al 20,000 MW. A capacity of oyer 800 MW has been established in the country. Additions in the last couple of years (225 to 250 MW each year) hatte attracted international attention. Extensive wind survey conducted by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) in the 1980′s and an ESMAP study on windfamrs, concluded in 1992, helped India attract substantial World Bank funds for investing in wind energy sector through IREDA under the first ever extended credit line to any country for tltis purpose. Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) has been consistently supporting India in the field of Wind Energy.
Wind Energy is a major thrust area in the operations of Indian Renewable Energy D~velopment Agency (lRfDA) which inler alia is handling a 78 million USD World Bank Line of Credit for Wind farm Projects comprising Global Environment facility (GEf) component of 13 million USD, IDA of 15 million USD and a DANIDA component of 50 million USD. Asian Development Bank have agreed for a financing package of 60 million USD for windfarm development in India. These credit lines are intended to implement a quality package of 140 MW windfarms in India.
While accessing international funds, appraisal of the project demands certain standards and quality in project investigation, DPR preparation, equipment type approvals, procurement procedures etc. The favourable fiscal environment and assured international funds hal-e inspired confidence in private sector going in for cost-effective quality designs and competitive technologies.
However, with tax credits being available in March and September every year, Indian entrepreneurs tend to rush for wind energy projects towards these months somewhat ignoring advance planning which is required (or tlte appraisal and procurement process acceptable to the international funding institutions.
There have been some genuine problems faced in following the World Bank's procurement procedures and some relaxations were required. But on the other hand there have been certain apprehensions and perceptions also on the part of developers and machinery suppliers which caused certain avoidable delays. The bank Itas now relaxed the procedures in some aspects and increased the threshold limits in tendering as well as in review requirements. The paper describes these details and offers RfQ model for procurement of equipment costing less than or equal to US $ 5 million, for the benefit of developers.
