KERC Extended Existing Wheeling Charges And Banking Facility For Renewable Projects Till 31st July 2022

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In a recent order Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) extended interim order in the matter of revision of wheeling charges and banking facility for renewable power (RE) projects for further four months from 01.04.2022 to 31.07.2022.

Background

On august, 2020, commission proposed the revision of wheeling charges to 50% of normal transmission charges and discontinue banking facility extended to solar, mini-hydel and wind power projects. As per the proposal, any energy banked and remain unutilized at the end of each month shall be counted as energy supplied to concerned ESCOM, where the RE asset is situated, free of cost. It was also proposed, the revision of wheeling charges and banking facility will be applicable for the RE projects who have entered into wheeling and banking agreement (WBA) from the date of the commencement of the order and excludes the projects where commissioning date (COD) was on or before 31.03.2018 and haven’t completed ten years service period. The commission initially proposed the above proposed revision for the control period up to 31.03.2022.

Commission’s Analysis and Decision

After analyzing several stakeholder’s submission, commission issued an interim order (IO) dated 07.09.2021, where it had passed the following orders.

i. For all the non-REC based renewable projects (RE) whose COD are on or before 31.03.2018, will continue to pay existing wheeling charges and be eligible of existing banking facility.

ii. For all the non-REC based RE projects whose COD are after 31.03.2018 and have entered into WBA agreement, will continue to pay to pay existing wheeling charges and be eligible of existing annual banking facility till 31.03.2022.

In view of the pending study report on wheeling charges and banking facility from the entrusted department, Prayas, Pune, commission observed some more time would be required to get the final report in the matter.

In the above context, commission ordered for further extension of existing interim order (IO) dated 07.09.2021, to four more months from 01.04.2022 to 31.07.2022.