Key determinants of wind energy growth in India: Analysis of policy and non-policy factors

Abstract Wind energy has been considered as an important resource to meet the energy needs of India in a sustainable manner, with over 30 GW installed capacity as on December 2017. However, the wind sector has witnessed a temporal and spatial asymmetrical growth in India over the last decade, attributed to policy inconsistency. We analyzed wind growth in six resource rich states of India from 2003 to 2016, using panel data regression, considering 16 exploratory variables categorized under policy, geographic, economic, social, technical and commercial heads. Contrary to expectation, both policy variables FIT and RPO came out as insignificant factors. The existing wind capacity and its share in the total generation capacity came out as significant drivers. Commercial factors like industrial tariff and utility's performance got reflected as other determinants. Stark variations were observed in state-wise analysis, with wind growth in some states responding to infrastructure factors like road network. Scaling up wind deployment in resource rich Indian states would require policy instruments contextualized to their economic profile, energy resources and power market.