Forty years of Indian wind

Cumulative capacity stands at 0.02 GW in FY93 and reaches only 1.10 GW by FY2000, a first decade in which the line barely lifts off the axis.

MP Windfarms Limited pioneers wind-estate development in 1995, and the curve steepens: 2.41 GW by FY04, 10.12 GW by FY09, then 32.23 GW by FY17.

By FY2025-26 the workbook records 55.96 GW across its 11,302 validated project rows, 6.22 GW of it added in that final year alone.

The first 10 GW takes nineteen years, from FY90 to FY09, making it the widest segment on the chart and the slowest tranche the sector has ever added.

Between FY14 and FY17 India adds its third 10 GW in just three years, compressing into one cycle the volume that once needed two decades.

Since FY09 every 10 GW tranche has landed in three to five years; the latest, from 40 to 50 GW, took four, crossing 50 GW in FY26.

By FY1998-99 NEPC-Micon leads the young market with 317.5 MW built, ahead of Vestas-RRB at 124.6 MW, Aban-Kenetech at 94.7 MW and AMTL-Wind World at 81.2 MW.

The median turbine in every year to FY1998-99 is rated 240 to 250 kW, so Das Lagerwey's 46.5 MW alone means 192 separate turbines on the ground.

Suzlon is the smallest named maker here with 37.3 MW, yet it is the only name on this chart that still appears in the FY2025-26 build.

Suzlon holds 58.7% of MW commissioned in FY08 and appears in every year from FY96 on, while every rival band around it either appears late or vanishes entirely.

Gamesa climbs from 0.9% of build in FY10 to 40.6% in FY21, then disappears from FY22 as the name gives way to Siemens Gamesa (SGRE).

GE and SGRE together account for 70.6% of MW commissioned in FY23, yet before FY13 neither ever held even 1% of a year's build.

Suzlon commissions 3.3 MW in FY96 and stays under 250 MW a year through FY04, then jumps to 494 MW in FY05 as the depreciation boom takes hold.

A peak of 1,779 MW in FY17 gives way to 349 MW in FY20 and just 80 MW in FY21, tracking the auction transition and a near-bankruptcy in the same window.

Recovery is jagged: 882 MW in FY24 is the strongest year since FY17, FY25 drops back to 336 MW, and FY26 rebounds to 744 MW.

The median installed turbine holds at 0.25 MW from FY94 to FY99, dipping only to 0.24 MW in FY97 — close to a decade of near-identical hardware.

Each jump is followed by a pause: 0.6 MW from FY03 to FY05, 0.85 MW from FY11 to FY13, 1.5 MW in FY14 and FY15, then 2.1 MW held from FY19 to FY23.

Median rating reaches 2.7 MW from FY24 to FY26, nearly eleven times the FY94 level, which is why swapping 250 kW units on proven sites carries such large upside.

Mean project size is 0.9 MW in FY94 and still only 1.4 MW in FY04, the arithmetic signature of single-turbine captive installations bought for tax relief.

From 2.6 MW in FY11 the mean climbs to 4.2 MW in FY12 and 7.2 MW in FY13, as developers building for tenders displace individual captive buyers.

The FY20 mean of 43.1 MW and 51.0 MW in FY26 are roughly fifty times the captive-era baseline — a different financing and land-assembly problem altogether.

Tamil Nadu carries 12.59 GW, second only to Gujarat, yet its average turbine rating of 892 kW is the lowest of the seven major states.

Gujarat's 15.80 GW averages 1,787 kW because more than three-quarters of it arrived from FY16 on, in the 2 MW era, opening an 895 kW gap over the state that started first.

Maharashtra's 5.95 GW averages just 1,224 kW, so together with Tamil Nadu it forms the pool of old, small hardware that repowering economics target first.

Corporate captive buyers take 81.0% of new capacity in FY05 and stay above 70% in most years before FY13, while the IPP band is barely visible.

IPP share moves from 0.3% in FY04 to 36.9% in FY13 and 44.0% in FY16, because competitive tenders reward whoever can build and finance at scale.

By FY23 IPPs take 76.1% of new build and 69.8% in FY25, so the sector's typical counterparty today is a balance-sheet developer, not a tax-driven owner.

2,657 of the 5,723 owners on the register hold exactly one turbine, a first bar more than two and a half times the height of the next category.

Owners of two to five turbines add another 1,977 names, so holdings of five turbines or fewer account for roughly 81% of everyone in the dataset.

Only 148 owners hold more than 50 turbines, which means any large repowering programme has to assemble agreement across thousands of very small holders.

Tamil Nadu passes 1 GW in FY04 and reaches 6.94 GW by FY12, holding first place comfortably while Gujarat is still under 3 GW.

Gujarat climbs from 4.03 GW in FY16 to 11.86 GW in FY24, adding more capacity in eight years than Tamil Nadu's entire fleet at FY09.

The lead changes hands in FY23 and widens by FY26 to 15.80 GW for Gujarat against 12.59 GW for Tamil Nadu, with Karnataka third at 8.40 GW.

The South takes 81.6% of new capacity in FY94 and still 72.7% in FY04, a period when Gujarat and Rajasthan never take more than about a quarter of annual build.

Desert share first tops the South's in FY08, then decisively from FY20 to FY24, peaking at 72.7% in FY20, the year the South's share falls to 17.5%.

Five years of desert majority end in FY25, when the South retakes the lead at 56.0%; by FY26 the two are level at about 41% each as Karnataka builds again.

Kutch alone holds 8.02 GW, ahead of Jaisalmer at 4.06 GW and Tirunelveli at 3.85 GW, and ten districts between them carry 54.9% of national capacity.

Gujarat supplies both Kutch and Jamnagar's 2.41 GW while Tamil Nadu contributes three entries, so the head of the list is effectively a two-state race.

Below the top three the curve flattens quickly, with Koppal closing the list at 1.07 GW, so evacuation upgrades and repowering both land in a few districts.

Wind begins in five districts in FY94 and reaches only 26 by FY04, a first decade of build packed into a handful of proven coastal and hill corridors.

The count more than doubles from 61 districts in FY10 to 133 in FY16, the years when better resource maps and new evacuation opened fresh states.

195 districts carry wind by FY25, but the spread has slowed: just 11 were added between FY23 and FY25, against 15 or more in each of FY11, FY16 and FY17.

Capacity aged nought to nine years accounts for 52.2% of the fleet at FY26, a direct reflection of how much of it was commissioned from FY17 on.

The 15 to 19 year segment holds 15.7% and the 20-plus segment 9.4%, bracketing 25.1% of installed capacity that has already passed fifteen years of service.

9.4% of capacity has reached its 20-year design life today, and the 22.6% now aged 10 to 14 years moves into that bracket within the next decade.

Machines below 0.5 MW make up 20.2% of every turbine ever installed but only 3.9% of capacity, the steepest downward slope anywhere on the chart.

The 0.5 to 1.0 MW band adds 26.9% of units for 14.7% of megawatts, so sub-1-MW hardware totals 47.1% of turbines against 18.6% of installed capacity.

From 2 MW up the slopes reverse, with 35.2% of units carrying 62.5% of capacity, and that reversal is the whole arithmetic case for replacing small machines.

A 1,237.6 MW entry at Khavda in Kutch, commissioned in FY26 on 238 Adani 5.2 MW turbines, is the largest single project in the workbook, 59% bigger than the 780 MW runner-up, also at Khavda.

Every one of the ten largest projects was commissioned between FY21 and FY26, all of them on 2.1 to 5.2 MW turbine platforms.

Five of the ten sit in Kutch and Jaisalmer, the two districts that top Exhibit 13, and Suzlon's 279.3 MW at Fatehgarh in FY23 closes the list.