Danish consultancy Cowi has won a contract to design India’s first offshore wind farm and to head capacity building within the Indian authorities, including preparation of an offshore wind policy.
The wind farm is to be located off the coast of Gujarat in northwestern India. The size of the demonstration project has not yet been finally determined, but the Indian government is very ambitious, Cowi said in a statement.
In addition to planning and design, Cowi will assist in determining the size of subsidies, electricity costs, connection to the power grid, etc. The consultancy will also help the authorities build an offshore wind knowledge bank.
Consultancy and engineering competencies in planning and design will include electrical design, conceptual design of the foundation based on geotechnical studies and metocean analyses, as well as the layout of the wind farm.
The project is financially backed by the European Union. Furthermore, the UK government has just entered into a cooperation agreement with India that also includes development of offshore wind facilities, Cowi says.
The planning phase will take three and a half years. After that, the project is to be put out to tender and the new policy implemented. The project is expected to be completed in 2019.
“India’s government is hugely ambitious, and from a supply and climate perspective, it needs to come up with new renewable energy technologies. India has the capacity and the will needed to develop and establish an offshore wind industry. We’re planning to design a farm generating somewhere in the range of 50 megawatt,” said Marc Normann, Market Director of Industry and Energy at Cowi.