3TIER: one of the largest independent providers of wind, solar and hydro energy assessment and power forecasting worldwide announced the opening of an office in Bangalore, India today. It should be noted here that India is one of the top four wind-power markets in the world and also, the most developed market in Asia.
According to Kenneth Westrick, fonder and CEO of 3TIER, “India has the elements needed to prove that it is possible to leapfrog fossil fuels and fully integrate renewable energy projects into a country’s energy portfolio. He further elaborated on his statement by informing that India has good wind resources in its southern and western states, tremendous potential to tap into solar and hydropower, a government commitment to explore renewable energy sources and a market of more than 1 billion people – including 420 million people with no access to electricity.
Of the total number of villages in India with no access to electricity, it can said with absolute certainty that close to 40% of these cannot be electrified using fossil fuels. Thus, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower can play an even greater role by electrifying remote parts of the country. “As the most densely populated country in the world with many villages that have no electricity, there is strong demand to augment the power grid in India,” said Steven Cashen, 3TIER’s Director of International Marketing Development. “3TIER will work closely with developers to assess and forecast potential wind, solar and hydro energy projects.” explained Cashen.
3TIER uses its knowledge about weather, climate and their impacts on weather-driven renewable energy resources to help developers make better decisions about their investments – before, during and after projects are built. The Archean Group, an India-based wind energy developer and Independent Power Producer (IPP) and a large conglomerate of businesses spanning various interests as ores and minerals, coal, common salt, industrial chemicals, shipping and ship building and alternate energy resources has already signed an agreement to use 3TIER’s FullView Assessment™. The latter is a powerful tool that provides highly customized information about specific wind or solar resources at any global location scalable from project sites to entire countries. The group proposes to set up large-scale wind energy projects in India, for sale of power to the grid and for captive consumption by its group companies.
“With the rapid growth of the renewable energy market, developers are looking for the quickest way to find information about potential project sites, as well as how to maximize their energy production,” Cashen said. “India’s anticipated growth and commitment to developing renewable power sources is a powerful combination to providing a viable solution to bring power to those without.”
Welcome 3TIER to India! As you have rightly stated: India has the potential to leapfrog into the renewable energy rather than piggy-backing on developed countries as has been the case so far in other fields.
You have talked about India’s potential in Wind and Hydro; however India has a great potential in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) also.
The best place in India to build CSP plants is Thar desert in Rajasthan. Conservatively, around 40MW of power can be produced by having a solar collector farm of one sq km, and a 5×5 sq km farm can produce 1GW of power. Thar desert area is around 0.23 Million sq km so now we can imagine the potential of Thar desert!
-Nitin Phansalkar
Coordinator, DESERTEC-India
http://www.desertec-india.org.in
Indeed, the CSP potential in India may far outweigh the wind and the hydro potential, the latter of which is already under much debate.
CSP however has the same story everywhere, lack of political will that ensures it doesn’t get much popular support.