Draft Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions for Green Energy Open Access) Regulations, 2022

  • Introduction
    • The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) on August 11, 2022 notified the Draft Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions for Green Energy Open access) regulations 2022 (OA Regulations).
    • The OA Regulations shall be applicable for allowing Open Access to electricity generated from Renewable Energy (RE) sources for usage of Intra-State Transmission System(s) (InSTS) and/or distribution system/s of licensee(s) in the state, including such InSTS and/or distribution system(s) which are incidental to Inter-State transmission of electricity.
    • Consumers except captive consumers will be eligible for green energy open access if they have a contracted demand or sanctioned load of 100 kW or more.
  • Eligibility
    • As per the draft OA Regulations, the consumers will be eligible for Open Access (OA) through the InSTS of the State Transmission Utility (STU) of the state or distribution system of the distribution licensees of the state.
    • The consumers having the Captive Power Projects (CPP) will have the right to OA under the draft OA Regulations. Apart from the captive consumers, those consumers who have a sanctioned load of 100 kW and above will have the right to OA under the draft OA Regulations.
  • Nodal Agency
    • Karnataka State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC) shall operate as the state Nodal Agency (SNA) for grant of long term, medium-term and short-term green energy open access. All the applications relating to green energy OA shall be submitted on the portal set up by the SNA. The applications shall be routed to the SNA by the Central Nodal Agency (CNA)
    • All the relevant information regarding green OA shall be uploaded on the portal of CNA.
  • Allotment Priority
    • Green Energy Open Access consumers (GEOA) will have a preference over the normal OA consumers. Among the GEOA, the Long-term OA consumers (LTOA) will have a preference over the Medium-term OA consumers (MTOA) and Short-term OA consumers (STOA).
  • Procedure for grant of GEOA
    • KERC proposed that SNC must ensure that the applicant must pay a non-refundable fee of INR 5000 for LTOA/MTOA and INR 1000 for STOA.
    • The application for LTOA, STOA and STOA must be accompanied by a non-refundable Bank Guarantee (BG) of INR 10000. The BG should be kept valid till until the Wheeling Agreement is signed.
    • If there is a modification in the quantum of power to be interchanged using the ISTS or the distribution system, then a fresh application would be would have to be made for the entire capacity along with the relevant documents and application fees.
    • The applicant would be entitled for payment at the Average Pooled Power Purchase Cost (APPC) or 75% of the generic tariff determined by the KERC for the energy injected into the licensees network from the date of grant of OA until the date of submission of the Wheeling Agreement.
  • Non-utilization of OA services by consumers
    • In the event of inability of STOA, to utilize more than 4 hours of the total or substantial part of the energy allocated to them, then they will be required to intimate the SLDC of their inability to utilize the capacity and surrender the allocated capacity.
    • An LTOA, MTOA should not relinquish his right specified in OA agreement without the prior approval of the Nodal Agency. The SLDC will reduce the capacity allotted to STOA consumers if the consumer underutilizes the allocated capacity more than twice a month with the duration underutilizing exceeding 2 hours each time.
  • OA Charges
    • KERC will determine the Transmission charges, CSS, Wheeling charges, Additional Surcharge, Banking charges, Standby charges considering the methodology specified for GEOA. Till the methodology is determined, the charges will be determined by KERC from time to time.
  • Banking
    • Banking shall be permitted on payment of the charges as determined by KERC. The banked energy will not be permitted to be carry-forwarded to the subsequent months. The credit for the energy banked will be adjusted during the same month.
    • The payment for the unutilized banked energy will be as per the actual banked energy limited to 30% consumption during the month from the license. The electricity supply companies will pay 75% of the generic tariff for the RE sources for the relevant period.
  • Curtailment priority
    • The KERC proposed that STOA consumers will be curtailed first followed by Short Term GEOA,. After that MTOA consumers followed by Medium-term GEOA. Lastly, LTOA consumers will be curtailed followed by Long term GEOA.
  • Meters
    • The GEOA would have to install tri-vector meter with time of day (TOD) facility. The meters should be capable of time differentiated measurements (15 minutes) of necessary parameters and communicate their reading to SLDC in real time.
    • The SLDC must post all the information on separate web wage titled Green Energy Open Access Information and issue monthly and annual report containing such information.

Draft Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2022

  • CERC in its Explanatory Memorandum titled 'Draft Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2022' elaborated upon two Amendments, namely, Amendment to Clause (4) under Appendix-II 'Procedure for Calculation of Transmission System Availability Factor for a Month' of the Principal Regulations; and Amendment to Clause (5) under Appendix-II 'Procedure for Calculation of Transmission System Availability Factor for a Month' of the Principal Regulations.
  • Under the Amendment to Clause (4) under Appendix-II 'Procedure for Calculation of Transmission System Availability Factor for a Month' of the Principal Regulations, several elaborations were made:
    • Ministry of Power vide letter dated August 31, 2021 and letters dated June 16, 2022 & August 03, 2022 respectively has requested CERC to suitably modify/make necessary amendments in the CERC (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations, 2019 in order to enable issue of deemed availability certificate by Member Secretary, RPC for shifting of ISTS Transmission Lines for all nationally important infrastructure projects of NHAI, Railways & BRO, provided that transmission customers are not affected by the shutdown of the line.
    • The Ministry of Power (MoP) vide its letter dated August 31, 2021, conveyed to the CERC that Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport (MoRTH) in his DO letter dated August 02, 2021 raised the issue of shutdown charges among others for shifting of transmission lines for NHAI projects. The Secretary, MoRTH, mentioned in the letter that shutdown charges are levied on MoRTH agencies for shifting of transmission lines. Till last year, the charges were about @ 2% of estimated costs, and now it has increased to about INR 5 crore to 7 crore in some estimates. Hence, MoRTH requested MOP to give deemed availability certificate for waiving of these charges.
    • The MoP further mentioned vide its letter dated August 31, 2021 that Present CERC (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations 2019 provides that shut down availed for maintenance of another transmission scheme or construction of new element or renovation /upgradation /additional capitalization in existing system approved by the Commission are covered under deemed availability of transmission lines to be provided by Member Secretary, Regional Power Committees (RPCs). Accordingly, RPCs do not provide deemed availability in cases of outages of transmission lines for construction of projects of NHAI/ Railways etc..
    • A meeting was also held under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Power) with representatives of CEA, PGCIL, CTUIL, NHAI, POSOCO and private transmission licensees on August 11, 2021 to discuss these issues. In this meeting it was noted that generally customers of transmission lines are not affected by shutdown of a particular transmission line, because of redundancy in the power system and NHAI projects are of national importance. Therefore, it was agreed that in case of NHAI projects, RPC Secretariat would provide deemed availability certificate for the shutdown period availed by transmission licensees for shifting of their transmission lines, provided that transmission customers are not affected by the shutdown of the line. Shutdown charges would be computed by CEA as per practice and would be included in the cost estimates to be provided to NHAI for shifting of lines. CEA was also requested to standardize the shutdown period, so that deemed availability period is not utilized for other than intended purposes.
    • Hence, the MoP vide its letter dated August 31, 2021, requested that CERC (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations, 2019 may be modified suitably, so that RPC Secretariat can issue deemed availability certificate for the shutdown period availed by transmission licensees for shifting of their transmission lines in NHAI projects, provided that transmission customers are not affected by the shutdown of the line.

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