Wind Energy

In one line

There is no wind energy statute; there is the Electricity Act, State land law, and a purchase obligation, and the question asks what that framework does and what would improve it.

Reading the question

It has two halves and both must be answered. The impact of the legal framework on resource management practices; and the measures that can be taken to enhance sustainability and integration into national energy policies.

So the structure is: what the framework is, what it does to how the resource is managed, and then proposals. An answer that stops after describing the framework has answered half.

The framework

There is no statute for wind. The framework is assembled from four places.

The Electricity Act, 2003. Section 7, generation without a licence, so a wind farm needs no licence if it meets the grid connectivity standards under section 73(b). Section 3(1), the National Electricity Policy and tariff policy prepared for development of the power system based on optimal utilisation of resources such as coal, natural gas, nuclear substances or materials, hydro and renewable sources of energy. Section 4, the national policy on stand alone systems including those based on renewable sources for rural areas. Section 61(h), the tariff to be determined guided by the promotion of co-generation and generation of electricity from renewable sources of energy. And section 86(1)(e), the State Commission to promote such generation by suitable measures for connectivity with the grid and sale of electricity to any person, and to specify a percentage of the total consumption of electricity in the area of a distribution licensee to be purchased from such sources.

Land law. The site is the constraint. A wind farm needs ridges and high wind sites, which are often revenue waste land, common land or forest, and it needs access roads for very large components. The instruments are the State's land revenue and land use conversion law, the 2013 Act where land is acquired, section 2 of the Van Adhiniyam where the site is forest land, and the village commons cases where it is gram panchayat land.

The grid. Connectivity under section 86(1)(e), the State Grid Code under section 86(1)(h), and the load despatch centres under sections 26 to 33, which have to balance an output nobody commands.

And the tariff route. Either a tariff determined by the Commission under section 62, or one adopted under section 63 following a transparent competitive bidding process, which is how most capacity is now contracted.

What the framework does to resource management

Four effects, and this is the heart of the answer.

It makes the wind a common resource with no rules of access. Nobody owns the wind, and the Act does not allocate it. Two turbines close together interfere: the upwind machine takes energy the downwind machine would have had, which is the wake effect. There is no statutory law of turbine spacing between different owners, so a good site behaves as open access between neighbouring developers, and the tragedy of the commons is available in miniature.