Blockade extends in India, wind turbine factories remain closed for now

Following the nation-wide locked down imposed on 24 March 2020, all non-essential businesses in the country have been shutdown for three weeks. To ensure uninterrupted power generation including generation from renewable power plants, only limited O&M staff are allowed to work on specific permission from the Regions State Police. However, on Tuesday 14 April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the nationwide lock down until 3 May with the same disciple and resolve that have been implemented so far in order to save lives from the coronavirus pandemic.

This means that both local and international turbine OEMs and components manufacturers will continue to suspend their production activities in India, the world’s fourth largest wind market. However, on 15 April, the government announced that select additional activities will be allowed starting on 20 April. GWEC is currently looking into how this will impact the wind industry.

As mentioned in our first Weekly Update, India is the largest wind turbine production base after China in the Asia Pacific region and is also one of the world’s largest wind gearbox manufacturing bases. The extension of the lockdown in India will add extra pressure on the already disrupted wind supply chain for both domestic and international markets.

Nevertheless, the government has no plans to back down from its ambitious target of 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. Thus on 14 April, the MNRE asked state and port authorities to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up renewable energy manufacturing and export services hub, and has stated they will provide full support to companies planning to expand or set-up bases in India for manufacturing and export of services in the renewable energy sector. These measures will be a major relief for the pressure that both the domestic and international supply chain are currently under.