Mapping India's Wind Manufacturing Supply Chain at CEEW

Riddhim joined CEEW's Technology Futures team as the sole analyst assigned to wind energy, a sector nobody else at the organization was covering as a primary workstream. The mandate was open-ended: understand how India could strengthen manufacturing competitiveness in wind energy, staying away from the deployment side and focusing on manufacturing and indigenization.

He had no prior deep knowledge of the sector. His first move was to build a foundation. He enrolled in a wind energy technology course at the National Institute of Wind Energy in Chennai, which CEEW supported financially, giving him a working understanding of how turbines are built and how energy is produced. From there, he read reports from IRENA, the Global Wind Energy Council, and the Denmark Technical University, and attended Wind Energy India, the sector's major annual conference and exhibition in Chennai.

Mapping the Supply Chain

With that foundation, Riddhim structured the research around the bill of materials for a wind turbine. He mapped the cost percentage of every major component, then focused on the four or five components that together accounted for more than 80% of turbine cost. For each of those components, he went a level deeper into sub-components and sourcing patterns.

Blades, for example, account for roughly 20% of turbine cost. Within blades, resins and adhesives account for the majority of that cost. Riddhim found that while some of these materials are manufactured in India, blade manufacturers source them from trusted vendors in China, Thailand, and Vietnam because OEM procurement requirements lock in those supply chains regardless of domestic availability.

Finding the Real Barriers

On the structural side, he found that India's flange manufacturing capability caps out below the diameter required for larger modern turbines, forcing imports from China with no domestic alternative. For precision machining components inside gearboxes and generators, the cost economics of Chinese manufacturing make domestic sourcing uncompetitive even after import costs.

The headline finding challenged the official narrative directly. India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy claims 70% indigenization in wind energy. Riddhim's research found that what actually happens in India is assembly, with raw materials, process materials, and precision components sourced predominantly from Germany and China. The report was not published, but the research was completed and the findings were documented.