DERC tells discoms to buy more green power
NEW DELHI: Power distribution companies will now have to procure more green energy or electricity generated from renewable sources.
The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has issued a new regulation according to which discoms will either have to generate their own electricity through renewable sources or increase the purchase of green energy.
The draft rules, DERC (Renewable Purchase Obligation and Renewable Energy Certificate Framework Implementation) Regulations, 2017, will also make it compulsory for discoms to buy 100% electricity being generated from the waste-to-energy (WTE) plants in the Capital. Delhi has four WTE plants.
“The distribution licensees shall compulsorily procure 100% power produced from all the Waste-to-Energy plants in the State, in the ratio of their procurement of power from all sources including their own as approved by the Commission from time to time, which shall qualify towards compliance of Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) for the Distribution Licensee,” read the draft regulations for which people can send their comments to the commission till August 15.
A DERC official said the annual RPO target will be notified by the dommission in the tariff order that is likely to be announced in September.
The DERC in October 2012 had notified regulations making RPO compulsory for all discoms in Delhi. RPOs make it mandatory for all discoms to purchase some percentage of green energy.
However, since 2012, the power regulator had only been carrying it forward to the next financial year as discoms had repeatedly failed to meet the RPOs. As a result, by the year 2015, the default had risen up to almost 15 per cent of the total procurement.
With the Delhi government notifying the Delhi Solar Policy, the three discoms have now pulled up their socks. Tata Power procured 400 MW solar power and Reliance Infra-backed BSES announced it would procure 700 MW green energy. BSES has decided to buy both solar and non-solar power at under ₹5 per unit through the “reverse auction” route to benefit consumers.