Government to Give Interest Rate Rebate to Low-Capacity Wind Mills

To increase power generation potential of low-capacity wind mills, the government will provide additional interest rate rebate of 0.25 per cent for wind turbine generators of up to 1 MW.

The government has come up with the policy to promote optimum utilization of wind energy resources as a large number of wind-turbines installed up to the year 2000 are of capacity below 500 kW and are at sites having high wind energy potential.

Initially, wind turbine generators of capacity of up to 1 MW would be eligible for repowering under the policy. However, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) can extend the policy to other projects also after evaluation of their initial experience. As per the policy, the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) will provide an additional interest rate rebate of 0.25 per cent over and above the interest rate rebates available to the new wind projects being financed by IREDA. The major share of renewable power capacity in India is from wind energy. India started harnessing the wind power prior to 1990. The present installed capacity is over 27 GW which is the fourth largest in the world after China, the US, and Germany.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com