Chhattisgarh Offers Sops For Grid-Connected Solar DRE Units

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The Chhattisgarh State Electricity Regulatory Commission (CSERC) has come out with a new draft regulation to boost the uptake of grid-connected distributed renewable energy (DRE) units in the state. The Commission has now proposed a second amendment to its Gid-Connected DRE Regulations. These rules will be applicable from September 1, 2023.

The draft CSERC (Grid Interactive Distributed Renewable Energy Sources) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2023 has proposed new sops on transmission charges, wheeling charges, cross-subsidy charges, and other charges for the first 500 MW solar DRE projects or projects which have achieved their Commercial Operations by December 27 in 2023.

The new rules said that all these projected would be eligible for nil charges towards transmission, wheeling, and cross-subsidy during the entire useful life of these projects. These owners of the projects would also be exempted from the fees of the State Load Despatch Centres. (SLDC). The norms said such projects would be allowed to bank their energy.

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“Banking of 100 percent of energy injection, after metting the generation with in-house auxiliary requirement, shall be permitted for all captive and open access consumption,” the rules said. It said that the banking charges at 2 percent of the banked energy would have to be paid in kind.

The rules also proposed that the solar power produced from such units would enjoy the must-run status, and thus its injection would be considered as deemed to be scheduled. It also said that such systems would also enjoy zero additional surcharges. However, all other upcoming DRE projects or those that achieved their COD after December 27, 2023, would not enjoy such facilities and would be governed by other rules, as specified in the regulation.

Meanwhile, the rules of CSERC also added two new definitions of banking cycle and green energy. While it said that the banking cycle of DRE would be the same as that of the financial year, Green Energy would refer to any electrical energy from renewable sources, including hydro and storage (if storage uses renewable power), Green Hydrogen, and Green Ammonia.

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