The government has invited bids for the development of off-shore wind energy of a total capacity of four GW. The bids are for four blocks of one GW each on open access basis for development of offshore wind power projects, off the coast of Tamil Nadu, through international competitive bidding.

Under this arrangement, the developers who win the bid for each block will set up one GW off-shore wind energy capacity and sell electricity directly to consumers under the open access regime. No viability gap funding (VGF) is given under the open access bids, and the renewable energy generated would be sold to entities such as industries, which are currently in the high-tariff band. 

The off-shore wind energy bids have been invited through Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). The bids are being called as all necessary environmental clearances are in place.

Off-shore wind does away with constraints of availability of land, has higher capacity utilization function (CUF) - approaching almost 50 percent. Also, off-shore wind turbines offer more efficiency than those of on-shore wind turbines; each turbine is of 15 MW.  This step will take India’s RE journey into another dimension.