CERC Drafts Outline For Power System Development Fund

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has issued draft regulations for the Power System Development Fund.

The proposed regulations deal with the creation of a power system development fund and its implementation, with the objective of tackling the issue of the country’s power sector grappling with transmission related issues.

The fund when implemented will come as a big boost for stakeholders and implementing agencies that have been tasked with the job of setting up renewable energy as well as conventional power projects in the country.

The draft for the fund has been put up for comments by stakeholders and the general public up to June 21, 2019. After which, upon further approvals the regulations will come into force from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.

The funds will be credited to the power system development fund (PSDF) every month or as decided by the central government. The PSDF will be maintained and operated through the public account of India. And will be used fund projects or programs for the creation of necessary infrastructure, necessary transmission systems of strategic importance based on operational feedback by load despatch centres for relieving congestion in the interstate transmission system (ISTS) and intrastate systems which are incidental to the ISTS.

Alternatively, the funds can also be utilised for installation of shunt capacitors, series compensators and other reactive energy generators for the improvement of voltage profile in the grid. It may be used for the installation of standard and special protection programs, pilot and demonstrative projects and for setting right the discrepancies identified in the protection audits on a regional basis; renovation and modernisation of transmission and distribution systems for relieving congestion and any other project such as conducting technical studies and capacity building.

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In March, the central commission issued an amendment for the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Sharing of Inter-State Transmission Charges & Losses) Regulations, 2010. According to the latest amendment, which is now the sixth amendment to the Regulations which were first formulated in 2010, “No transmission charges and losses for the use of the ISTS network will be payable for the generation based on solar and wind power resources for a period of 25 years from the date of commercial operation.”