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As the world marked World Wind Day 2025 on June 15, India has crossed a significant milestone, with wind power capacity surpassing 51 gigawatts (GW) as of May, consolidating its position as the fourth-largest wind energy market globally.
Gujarat has emerged as the national frontrunner, with installed capacity rising to 12,677 MW by March 2025 from 11,722 megawatts (MW) in March 2024 — an annual growth of 8.14 per cent. Tamil Nadu, long seen as India’s wind energy pioneer, maintained its second-place status, registering a steady 10.71 per cent growth to 11,739 MW from 10,603 MW.
Karnataka, however, stood out as the fastest-growing state, recording a striking 22.13 per cent increase to 7,351 MW from 6,019 MW, underscoring its rise as a key player in India’s wind sector.
Despite these gains, India’s wind energy ambitions face mounting challenges that could derail its target of 140 GW by 2030. Reaching that goal would require nearly 100 GW of new installations over the next five years. This is a formidable task, given persistent structural and systemic hurdles.
India’s wind turbine manufacturing sector is marked by a striking paradox: While domestic capacity stands at a robust 18 GW annually across 14 original equipment manufacturers (OEM), only 4.15 GW was installed in 2024-25, less than a quarter of available capacity.
The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s (MNRE) Revised List of Models and Manufacturers (RLMM), updated in May 2025, includes 33 approved turbine models. Indian firms account for 14 of these, led by Suzlon and Pioneer Wincon, while international players such as Siemens Gamesa, Senvion and Vestas dominate with 19 models.
Yet this manufacturing strength remains largely untapped. Inconsistent domestic demand and policy uncertainty have pushed OEMs to pivot towards export markets, including the United States, Brazil, Australia and parts of Europe. While exports offer temporary reprieve, they underscore a deeper mismatch between domestic manufacturing capabilities and market absorption.
India’s inadequate transmission infrastructure now poses one of the most pressing threats to its renewable energy expansion. Tamil Nadu offers a cautionary tale; in a single week, 70 million units of renewable power could not be evacuated due to grid curtailment. The state’s load dispatch centre has been forced to scale back power intake, cutting supply for three to five hours daily at major substations including Theni, Surandai, Veeranam and Aralvaimozhi.
This comes even as Tamil Nadu’s renewable purchase obligation target is set to rise to 33.01 per cent in 2025-26, up from 29.91 per cent the previous year — a target the state already failed to meet. The inability to evacuate available clean energy while simultaneously falling short on mandated consumption illustrates the urgent need for transmission infrastructure upgrades.
The government has proposed expanding grid capacity to 111 GW by 2030, with 94 GW targeted by 2027 through initiatives such as the Green Energy Corridor and high-voltage direct current networks. However, grid development continues to lag behind the pace of renewable installations, creating a bottleneck that could stall the energy transition.
Despite India’s manufacturing potential, the wind sector remains hamstrung by import dependency and cost competitiveness challenges. Indian-made turbines are estimated to be 30-60 per cent more expensive than their Chinese counterparts, largely due to higher input costs and continued reliance on imported components.
Key parts such as special bearings, gearboxes, yaw mechanisms and turbine controllers are still imported, often from China, which supplies half of India’s hub castings and 90 per cent of gearbox castings.
MNRE’s draft guidelines now propose that only components manufactured domestically will qualify for RLMM approval, with limited exemptions of up to 50 turbines or 200 MW capacity for new entrants. While this push for localisation supports self-reliance, it risks creating short-term supply chain disruptions and cost inflation for manufacturers already under pressure.
Though the 2025-26 Union Budget allocated increased funding to the Make in India initiative, no dedicated production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme exists for wind components, limiting the sector’s ability to scale and reduce costs effectively.
An emerging challenge facing India’s wind energy sector involves cybersecurity risks associated with imported equipment and foreign-operated systems.
According to apex central think tank NITI Aayog’s report on Domestic manufacturing capacity and cybersecurity challenges, imports from countries like China raise significant data security concerns, including OEMs’ data collection servers located outside India and vulnerabilities in power system network operations.
In response, MNRE’s latest RLMM amendments require data centres and servers handling wind turbine information to be located within India. Real-time operational data must remain domestic and remote control operations must be handled exclusively from within the country. While these measures strengthen data sovereignty, they could further restrict technology options and impose new compliance burdens on OEMs.
Amid these challenges, wind repowering offers a viable opportunity for enhancing generation without acquiring additional land. By replacing older, low-capacity turbines with newer, high-efficiency models, output can potentially double or triple from the same site.
States like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat, home to India’s oldest wind farms, many with sub-1.5 MW turbines, are ripe for repowering.
Repowering initiatives have the potential to significantly increase energy output, lower operational costs and deliver over 25 years of consistent power generation, all without the need for additional land. By leveraging existing grid connections and infrastructure, repowering enables more efficient use of ageing wind sites.
However, policy support for repowering remains nascent and must be made economically attractive to drive adoption. Without clear incentives or streamlined procedures, developers remain hesitant to invest in upgrading older sites, many of which operate with turbines below 1.5 MW capacity.
India’s wind sector has long been affected by policy uncertainty and abrupt regulatory shifts. The move from feed-in tariffs to competitive bidding slashed tariffs, squeezed margins for manufacturers and shifted project development from OEMs to independent power producers. While this transition aimed to drive efficiency, it introduced volatility that continues to unsettle investor confidence.
In 2023, the MNRE unveiled a roadmap for 50 GW of annual renewable energy tenders, with 10 GW earmarked specifically for wind. Yet, consistent execution of this tendering schedule remains elusive. A recent overhaul in the bidding process, moving from reverse auctions to a single-stage, two-envelope competitive system, is intended to curb unrealistic pricing. Still, predictable and transparent implementation will be key to restoring trust in the sector.
As India marked World Wind Day 2025, the wind energy sector stood at a crossroads. With manufacturing capacity vastly underutilised, transmission networks falling behind generation growth and import dependencies eroding cost competitiveness, the road to the 2030 target of 140 GW is anything but smooth.
Achieving this goal will require urgent and coordinated action across several fronts. Accelerating grid infrastructure upgrades, introducing targeted PLI schemes for key components, maintaining policy consistency and fostering a stable domestic market are essential steps.
Only by addressing these core challenges can India unlock the full potential of its wind energy sector and position itself as a global leader in the transition to clean, renewable power.
