India has invited bids for the development of four offshore wind energy projects of 1 gigawatt (GW) each off its south-eastern coast, the government said in a statement on Friday.

Developers who win the bids will be able to sell electricity directly to consumers under the open access regime, the government said, adding that no viability gap funding will be provided for the projects. India had installed over 188 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity as of end-December, consisting mainly of solar and hydro projects. It is looking to boost installation of offshore wind plants as a part of its plan to boost non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 GW by 2030.

Separately, the government had announced on Thursday it would provide viability gap funding for two offshore wind projects totaling 1 GW.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar in New Delhi; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)