India has given up on development of two tidal power plants. High costs associated with setting up tidal power plants is the reason behind Indian government’s decision.
The proposed tidal power plants in states of Gujarat and West Bengal have been cancelled as the State Governments of respective states expressed financial challenges in implementation of these projects.
The new and renewable energy minister RK Singh informed that cost of development of tidal power plants is 10 to 20 times more than that of solar and wind energy projects, thus making them financial unviable.
In 2015, Gujarat government had sanctioned Rs 25 crore for development of a 50 megawatt tidal power plant in Gulf of Kutch. The project was to be implemented by Atlantis Resource Corporation, which had signed a memorandum of understanding with the state government.
The company had assessed a potential of 300 megawatts in Gulf of Kutch. The government had planned to increase the capacity of the 50 megawatt project to 200 megawatts over two years.
In West Bengal, the state government had planned to set up a 100 megawatt project in Sundarbans. No status update about this project is, however, available.
The decision to cancel all projects in the country comes nearly 10 years after Atlantis Resource Corporation signed an agreement with Gujarat government to set up the 50 megawatt project.
During this period, the Indian government issued policies for solar, wind, solar-wind hybrid, and energy storage as well as offshore wind energy, but no policy was issued for tidal power.
Reference- Economic Times, Press Information Bureau, Clean Technica