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Background Overview
The world is getting increasingly convinced of the
harmful
impacts of global warming. Diminishing of polar ice,
erratic
weather, devastating hurricanes, warm winters are
some of
the indicators. Global warming has been linked to
energy
use practices around the world and an international
effort
is underway to shift enrgy supply to non-polluting
and renewable
sources of energy. Amongst the renewables, wind
energy is
the most attarctive source of energy and competes
well with
conventional sources of energy. Today with nearly 60
GW of
installed capacity, wind energy is the fastest
growing industry
in the world and nearly 11,000 MW of new capacity
was added
in 2005 representing a growth of around 25%.
The problems of the developing countries are
some-what different.
The economies like India, China, Brazil etc., in
their evolution,
have reached a point of steep growth in economic and
industrial
development and the per capita energy consumption is
likely
to go up significantly. If these economies do not
embark
on non-polluting energy strategies, it would not
only be
difficult to sustain such a course due to the finite
fossil
fuel reserves, but also earth would be pushed
further towards
a crisis resulting from global warming. While there
are some
people, who advocate nuclear power as a solution,
this option
has its own perils, which can be more severe than
global
warming.
In this scenario, developing countries are faced
with a
dilemma and have to necessarily look for energy
options,
that on the one hand, allow them to continue with
growth,
and on the other hand, to limit or eliminate the
causes of
global warming. For developing countries, search for
alternative
energy options is driven by concerns of energy
security as
well as environmental issues.
India with nearly 4500 MW of installed wind power
capacity
is the largest market in Asia and Asia - Pacific and
is also
the third largest market in the world. With a number
of international
players having set up manufacturing facilities here,
the
country is rapidly emerging as the manufacturing and
knowledge
hub for wind power development.
China enacted a renewable energy law in 2005 after
the very
successful WWEC-2004 in Beijing in 2004.
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