APTEL Raises Concern Over Unscheduled Power Drawal From Grid By RE Generators

APTEL Raises Concern Over Unscheduled Power Drawal From Grid By RE Generators

The Appellate Tribunal For Electricity (APTEL) in its latest judgment raised concerns over the unscheduled power drawal from the grid by renewable energy generators. It also took a dig at the authorities concerned over the dearth of legislation on the issue.

The remarks appeared in the latest written order of the APTEL while hearing a matter related to the penalties against unscheduled drawal of power by the renewable energy generators during the non-generation hours/night time at Rewa Ultra Solar Park in Madhya Pradesh. 

“We are anguished by the fact that except few generators including the Appellant, all other are drawing power under unscheduled interchange mechanism and the Central Commission has not passed any such order against those generators, in spite, has notified the IEGC 2023 Regulations allowing such a drawl of power on payment of deviation charges as per the DSM Regulations,” APTEL said in its order. 

In its judgement APTEL referred to the Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) rules of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) and the CERC (Indian Electricity Grid Code) Regulations, 2023 (in short “IEGC 2023”). 

The apex body heard the matter in relation to a dispute among the three solar power developers–Arinsun Clean Energy Private Limited, Mahindra Renewable, and Athena Jaipur Solar Power; Madhya Pradesh Power Management Company Limited (MPPMCL), Rewa Ultra Mega Solar (RUMS) Limited. Each of these developers had developed 250 MW of solar power projects at the solar park. The case deliberated on the charges to be paid in case of unscheduled drawl of power from the grid. 

The APTEL order said that the drawl of powerv upto the notification of IEFC 2023 would be charges as per DSM Regulations and post applicability of the IEGS 2023 Regulations, the same would be as per the EGC regulations read with DSM Regulations. The DSM Regulations of the CERC deals with the charges in case of deviation from the scheduled injection of power into the grid and related matter.