| Essar Power is in
talks with a number of European wind turbine manufacturing
firms, including Germany's RE Power, to set up a
joint venture partnership for manufacturing wind
turbine sets. "The company may initially invest
Rs 100 crore and later scale up investments to around
Rs 500 crore for the venture," industry sources
said.
When contacted, Essar Power officials declined
to comment.
RE Power manufactures one of the largest wind
turbines in the world of 5 Mw capacity. It takes
an investment of around Rs 5 crore for setting
up 1 Mw of wind energy. "Essar may set up
RE Power's wind turbines, thus generating business
for it. This will be the first step in the joint
venture arrangement. Later, they may go in for
manufacturing of wind turbines and market them
in India," sources said.
The company may also set up large wind farms
with 5-Mw wind turbine capacity. "The business
model works like this - once big wind farms are
set up, other players may pick up equity in that
venture," sources added.
Wind power generation capacity in the country
is 5,300 Mw. India is the fourth largest market
for wind energy in the world. The annual market
for wind power in India is around Rs 7,000 crore
with a 40 per cent growth rate. Players in the
wind energy sector are Suzlon, Enercon, NEG Micon
and Vestas RRB, among others.
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CORPORATE