Wescare wins U.S. EPA award

By R. Gopalakrishnan

CHENNAI, AUG. 19. The Chennai-based Wescare India, a developer of wind farms, has been conferred the Purple Heart Award-Honourable Mention, which is one among the Green Power Leadership Awards instituted by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Centre for Resource Solutions.

The award, received personally by Mr. N. Ramani, Managing Director, Wescare India, at a function at Portland, U.S. on July 30, recognises organisations involved in promoting the future development of green power amidst difficult market scenarios. According to Mr. Ramani, Wescare, which has established 115 MW of wind power capacity in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, is the only company outside the U.S. to have received the award.

Mr. Ramani said Wescare's business success owed a lot to its focus on maintenance and maximisation of the use of installed capacity, and innovations like development of tools and jig to de-erect blades, hubs and generators from the top of the tower without usage of crane. It has interconnected more than eighty turbines through its wireless Centrally Monitoring Communication System (CMCS) for effective maintenance and optimisation of power usage. The system is now being linked to V-sat, which can download the online data at the company's corporate office here. The V-sat is also being linked to the company's web page (www.wescare.com) so that customers in any part of the globe can monitor the performance of the turbines.

What is needed to exploit the full potential of wind energy in India? ``The authorities in States should evolve a realistic policy to encourage wind energy farms to combine their social obligations and commercial imperatives, by allowing them to sell a part, say 30 per cent, of their generation free of cost to the farmers who are now getting free power from the State Electricity Board, and sell the rest of the generation at their discretion. The beneficiary farmers should be identified by the wind power generators so as to ensure efficient use of energy by the farmers through technical advice from the generator'', said Mr. V. R. Raghunathan, Chairman of Wescare India. This would also enable the generator to recover the cost of free power from other customers who could afford to pay more and reduce the demand load on the SEB.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Raghunathan said another need was to allow wind farms to use the free land available with them for agricultural purposes. At present, licence was given to wind farms on condition that the land in their possession should not be used for any purpose other than wind energy generation. This only led to waste of land assets. Permitting the generators to take to cultivation as deemed fit by them would help them increase their cash flow and reduce the cost of power, he said.

``Unlike individual farmers, companies like us have the financial capability to access farm credit and technology. Such a policy will be all the more relevant to Tamil Nadu, where the terrain in which wind farms are located, is suitable for cultivation, unlike in most farms in Andhra Pradesh'', Mr. Raghunathan added.

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