The warming of the Indian Ocean due to global climate change is leading to decline in India’s wind power potential, as noted by a study that appeared in Science Advances. This is because of the weakening of the monsoon as a result of warming of Waters.
As reported in December 2018, the research calculated the country’s wind power potential over the past 40 years and found that wind power trends are linked to the strength of the summer monsoons.
India is investing billions in wind power and has set the ambitious goal to double its capacity in the next five years. Maximum of the wind turbines are in southern and western India to best capture the winds of the summer monsoon that brings heavy rains and winds.
Meng Gao, a postdoctoral fellow at School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard China Project, says that though India is investing heavily in wind power, the benefits are vulnerable to the changing climate. The link between trends in wind power and the strength of the India summer monsoon is such that about 63 per cent of the annual wind energy production comes from monsoon winds of spring and summer. Due to weakened monsoon, about 13 per cent decline has been reported in energy potential over the last four decades, making the power systems less productive. The greatest decline was seen in Rajasthan and Maharashtra in the western region where the investment is the highest. As for eastern region, smaller or no decline was reported.
The experts say that the findings can provide suggestions on where to build more turbines to minimise the influences of climate change. They aim to explore what will happen to wind power potential in India in the future using projections from climate models.