Research Article Wind Energy Development in India and a Methodology for Evaluating Performance of Wind Farm Clusters Sanjeev H. Kulkarni, 1 Tumkur Ramakrishnarao Anil, 1 and Rajakumar Dyamenally Gowdar 2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, KLS Gogte Institute of Technology, Udyambag, Belagavi, Karnataka 590006, India 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, GM Institute of Technology, Davangere, Karnataka 577004, India Correspondence should be addressed to Sanjeev H. Kulkarni; khsanjeev77@gmail.com Received 3 June 2016; Accepted 11 October 2016 Academic Editor: Valerio Lo Brano Copyright © 2016 Sanjeev H. Kulkarni et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. With maturity of advanced technologies and urgent requirement for maintaining a healthy environment with reasonable price, India is moving towards a trend of generating electricity from renewable resources. Wind energy production, with its relatively safer and positive environmental characteristics, has evolved from a marginal activity into a multibillion dollar industry today. Wind energy power plants, also known as wind farms, comprise multiple wind turbines. Tough there are several wind-mill clusters producing energy in diferent geographical locations across the world, evaluating their performance is a complex task and is an important focus for stakeholders. In this work an attempt is made to estimate the performance of wind clusters employing a multicriteria approach. Multiple factors that afect wind farm operations are analyzed by taking experts opinions, and a performance ranking of the wind farms is generated. Te weights of the selection criteria are determined by pairwise comparison matrices of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Te proposed methodology evaluates wind farm performance based on technical, economic, environmental, and sociological indicators. Both qualitative and quantitative parameters were considered. Empirical data were collected through questionnaire from the selected wind farms of Belagavi district in the Indian State of Karnataka. Tis proposed methodology is a useful tool for cluster analysis. 1. Introduction On account of continuous industrial development clubbed with depletion of fossil fuels and emerging environmental consciousness, the demands for alternative energy resources have been increasing exponentially in the 21st century. With growing demand for energy, increased environmental pol- lution, and depleting energy sources, human society today faces multiple challenges of transition towards a sustainable development and the poverty eradication. In dealing with sustainable development energy is one of the main factors that must be considered [1]. Te concept of sustainable devel- opment according to Brundtland report [2] is based on the idea of meeting the needs of the present without compro- mising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In developing economies clean and energy-efcient technologies can contribute to sustainable development and energy security [3]. Energy planning involves fnding a set of sources to meet the energy requirements in an optimal manner. As an alterna- tive means and of meeting global energy demands, renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, mini-hydropower, geothermal, and biomass energy, are receiving increasing attention. Being an afordable and clean energy source, wind energy is among the world’s fastest growing renewable energy forms [4]. Te challenge for India today is rapid adoption of renewable energy sources to power growing economy at a price that consumers can aford and on a scale large enough to make a major dent in shortages. India has added large- scale conventional power resources, as demand for power has grown since decades [5]. Today there are alternate options available in the form of solar and wind power technologies and renewable energy (RE) resources have become com- mercially available in the marketplace. Tis has added addi- tional options for policymakers who are concerned with the technical, economic, and environmental characteristics Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Renewable Energy Volume 2016, Article ID 6769405, 11 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/6769405