India installed 878 MW of wind capacity in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022, a 129% year-over-year (YoY) increase compared to 384 MW installed in the same period last year.

Installations grew over 104% quarter-over-quarter compared to Q2 2022.

The significant rise in installations during the quarter was primarily due to the commissioning of projects that were pending.

In the first nine months (9M) of 2022, new wind installations stood at 1.58 GW, a 27% growth compared to 1.24 GW in the same period last year.

India’s cumulative wind installations at the end of Q3 2022 stood at nearly 42 GW.

A significant share of installations in Q3 2022 was in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka.

During the quarter, 379 MW of wind capacity was added in Gujarat. The state accounted for nearly 43% of the installations in the quarter. Ranked second for cumulative installations in the country, the state has over 9.8 GW of installed wind capacity.

Madhya Pradesh accounted for nearly 37% of all new installations in the quarter, adding over 324 MW of wind capacity.

In Karnataka, 86 MW of wind power capacity was added during the quarter. The state accounted for 10% of all new installations in Q3 2022 and has a cumulative wind capacity of 5.27 GW.

About 7.5 MW of wind capacity was added in Tamil Nadu during the quarter. However, the state leads the market with a 23.7% share of the country’s total installations, with 9.9 GW of installed wind capacity.

Rajasthan rounded off the top five with 81 MW of capacity added during the quarter, accounting for 11% of the country’s total wind installations. The state has a total installed wind capacity of 4.6 GW.

There were no new wind installations in Maharashtra during the quarter, but the state houses 12% of the country’s total wind installations.

To boost wind installations and bring down the cost of power generated from wind projects, the Ministry of Power issued a policy mandating Wind Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) in July. The policy outlined the mandatory wind RPO from the financial year (FY) 2022- 23 to FY 2029-30. States will have to meet 0.81% of their energy demand from wind power in FY 2022-23. By 2020-30, the requirement will be 6.94%. The mandatory requirement to source power from wind sources is expected to push more wind projects to come online.

In another initiative to increase wind installations, Power Minister R.K. Singh announced that bids would be invited for offshore wind energy blocks of 4 GW annually for three years. Starting FY 2022-23, the bids will be released for projects to be developed in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.