Chennai-based Centre for
Wind Energy Technology
(C-WET), an autonomous
research and development
institution under the ministry
of new and renewable
energy, recently released a wind
atlas for India.
Prepared in association with the
National Laboratory for Sustainable
Energy at the Technical University
of Denmark and sponsored
by MNRE, the Indian Wind Atlas
is a data book containing wind
resource availability across India
for harnessing wind energy.
"The Indian Wind Atlas would
be an extremely useful guide
for wind farm developers, engineers
and investors," D.V. Giri,
a member of the C-WET Governing
Council and Chairman
of the Indian Wind Turbine
Manufacturers Association,
told Projectmonitor.
"The atlas would help identify
the most ideal location for setting
up a wind farm. The data contained
in it would be used for evaluating
potential of wind power
output from a wind farm. Besides,
the atlas would go a long way in
helping wind farm developers
select the right kind of wind turbines,"
he added.
C-WET is also in the process of
releasing a numerical wind atlas
in digital form. Users will be able
to read the files contained in it
with WAsP, a PC programme for
predicting wind climates, wind
resources, and power production
from wind turbines and wind
farms. The programme has been
developed by the Wind Energy
Division at RISO DTU, Denmark.
A C-WET official associated
with the project said that the digital
version of the atlas would
contain 1.67 lakh files, which
could be read and analysed
using WAsP. It would be released
in six months time, he added.
So far, the wind atlas methodology,
in the form of WAsP programme,
has been employed in
110 countries and territories
around the world. National
wind atlases exist for about 30
countries.