Piyush Goyal Releases Report of Technical Committee on Large Scale Integration of Renewable Energy

Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy minister Piyush Goyal has released Report of the Technical Committee on Large Scale Integration of Renewable Energy, Need for Balancing, Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) and associated issues. He also launched Ancillary Services Operations in India.

Speaking on the occasion, Goyal said that this is going to be a game changing report which will set up unparallel benchmarks in the world. The Minister assured to diligently work on recommendations of the report. Talking about the grid management, he said that now his team will take up ‘one nation, one grid, one price 24X7’ on mission mode.

The minister explained his action plan for international support by informing that India will provide free of cost technical support for strengthening of grid systems of the neighboring SAARC countries and under developed countries in other part of the world.

India has set an ambitious target of achieving 175 GW of renewable generation capacity. In order to integrate such high penetration of renewable energy and address the concerns of the stakeholders in renewable energy, a high level Technical Committee was constituted with members from Ministry of Power, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), renewable rich states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Power Utilities like PGCIL, Power System operation Corporation Ltd. (POSOCO), NTPC, State Generating companies and Private generating companies and Institutions like India Meteorological department (IMD), National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), GIZ, Ernst & Young (E&Y) and others.

The committee had extensive deliberations and has recommended several actions, such as bringing flexibility in the conventional generation, frequency control, generation reserves, ancillary services, forecasting, scheduling, deviation settlement mechanism, balancing requirement, data telemetry and communication, Renewable Energy Management Centres (REMCs), Transmission system augmentation and strengthening as well as certain compliance actions at renewable generation front.

The Committee has put forth a 15 point Action Plan for facilitating large scale integration of renewables in the country, in a secure and reliable manner. Some of the actions have been completed with active support of CERC, State Energy Regulatory Commission (SERC), NIWE and other stake holders.

Regulatory Framework for Intra-State Settlement and Imbalance Handling has already been implemented in 5 states. For Model Regulations for Regulatory Framework for Forecasting, Scheduling and Imbalance Settlement for Renewable Energy (RE) generators have been published in Nov. 2015 and Draft regulations have already been floated by 6 States. Other States are in the process of formulation. Regulatory Framework for Reserves at inter-state level has been issued in Oct. 2015.

Ministry of Power (MOP), MNRE, GIZ, POSOCO and States are working together to prepare the DPR for implementation of Renewable Energy Management Centres (REMCs). DPR for Southern States and Southern Regional Load Despatch Centre (SRLDC) is under finalization and combined NIT would be floated soon.

Focus has also been given on Capacity Building of State Load Despatch Centres (SLDCs) particularly in RE Rich States. Report also talks about the Newer Technologies say Micro-Grids, Demand Response, Prosumers, Electricity Storage, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles etc. Thus all the recommendations aim at making the grid secure and reliable even with large scale integration of renewables.

In an electricity grid, the basic services are power generation, energy supply and power delivery from the producer to the consumer. Some system support services such as frequency and voltage control are required for secure & reliable grid operation. These support services are known as ‘Ancillary Services’ and are basically procured and pressed into service by the System Operator. Amendment to the Tariff policy has also been notified, which mandates implementation of Ancillary Services. The Regulatory framework for implementation of Ancillary Services Operations has been notified by CERC. National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) operated by POSOCO has been designated as Nodal agency for implementation of Ancillary Services. Ancillary Services is being implemented for the first time in the country and would help in better grid management even with large scale renewable generation addition in the grid.