Maharashtra Discom Issues Green Energy Open Access Norms

Maharashtra Issues Green Energy Open Access Norms

The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has now issued guidelines for the roll out of green energy open access in the state. This comes after the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission had notified its MERC (Distributed Open Access) (Second Amendment) Regulations 2023. The latest regulation allows consumers with contracted demand of 100 kw or more to avail the facility of green energy.

These norms empower the consumers to avail green energy open access for short term, medium term and long term. The state power distributor in the norms said that the Maharashtra State Load Despatch Centre (MSLDC) has been earmarked for short term open access. On the other hand, it allocated the works of medium- and long-term green energy open access to the State Transmission Utility (STU).

The MSEDCL norms said that the banking charges for these services will be adjusted to 8% of the energy banked. It also said that any unutilised surplus banked energy will lapse at the end of each banking cycle, with eligibility to receive renewable energy certificates for the lapsed energy.

It also made a provision for this regime with lower contract demand. “Green energy open access is now allowed for consumers with contract demand lower than 1 MW based on specific metering requirements (special energy meter for high tension consumers and ToD meter for eligible low tension consumers),” it said.

These rules also talked about exemptions from cross subsidy and additional surcharges as described earlier in the Green Energy Open Access Rules, notified by the Ministry of Power.

“Exemptions from cross subsidy surcharge and additional surcharge for power sourced from non-fossil fuel based waste to energy plants and for green energy utiised for the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia,” the rules said.

The rules said that these norms will be applicable for all types of renewable energy sources as may be notified by the Union government and should also include any mechanism that utilises green energy to replace fossil field including production of green hydrogen or green ammonia.