Govt Extends Benefits To Open Access Consumers, Notifies New Rule

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The Ministry of Power has amended its Electricity (Second Amendment) Rules 2023 and inserted new provisions to regulate the sector. These new provisions are related to the rules related to the General Network Access (GNA) and Open Access Consumers in the country. 

In its newly amended rules, the ministry talked about the additional surcharge for open access and GNA and proposed computing wheeling charges. The ministry said that Rule 21 should be renumbered as Rule 24. It also proposed inserting the new rules before the renumbered Rule 24. The new rules said that the additional surcharge would be eliminated within four years of using the open-access services

The new rules said that the additional surcharge levied on any Open Access Consumer should not be more than the per unit fixed cost of power purchase of the distribution licensee concerned. 

“Provided that for a person availing General Network Access or Open Access, the additional surcharge shall be linearly reduced from the value in the year in which General Network Access or Open Access was granted so that, if it is continued to be availed by this person, the additional surcharge shall get eliminated within four years from the date of grant of General Network Access or Open Access,” the rules read.

“Provided further that the additional surcharge shall not be applicable for Open Access Consumer to the extent of contract demand being maintained with the distribution licensees.”

The new rules also said that the wheeling charges for open access should be computed by dividing the Annual Revenue Requirement towards wheeling by the energy wheeled during the year. 

The new rules also talked about charges for using a network of State Transmission Utilities (STU). It said, “The charges for using State Transmission Utility network by the consumers availing short-term open access or Temporary-GNA, as the case may be, shall not be more than one hundred ten percent of the charges levied on consumers using State Transmission Utility network on a long-term basis or on General Network Access basis, as the case may be.”

The recent amendment of the Ministry Of Power (MoP) also made an addition of including changes to the regulation governing the transmission line stating, “A generating company or a person setting up a Captive Generating Plant (CGP) or an Energy Storage System (ESS) or a consumer having a load of not less than 25 Megawatt in case of Inter-State Transmission (IST) System and 10 Megawatt (MW) in case of Intra-State Transmission System shall not be required to obtain a license for establishing, operating or maintaining a dedicated transmission line to connect to the grid, under the Act.”