Indian Railways Meets 97.47% Non-Solar RPO But Achieves Only 44.27% Solar Compliance, MERC Order Reveals

The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued an important order on December 1, 2025, in Case No. 2/SM/2025 regarding the Renewable Purchase Obligation compliance of Indian Railways for the financial years from 2020-21 to 2023-24. Renewable Purchase Obligation is a statutory requirement that requires certain entities to buy a minimum amount of energy from renewable sources. The RPO targets for obligated entities during these years ranged from 16.00% in 2020-21 to 22.00% in 2023-24. The verification process was carried out even though there is an ongoing legal dispute about whether Indian Railways should be considered a deemed distribution licensee. The Commission clarified that RPO must be fulfilled either as a distribution licensee or as an open access consumer.

The Maharashtra Energy Development Agency submitted the RPO data for Indian Railways to the Commission. According to the submission, Indian Railways faced a large shortfall in both Solar and Non-Solar RPO, especially in solar energy. In Solar RPO, the shortfall was 76.711 MUs in 2020-21, 158.307 MUs in 2021-22, 39.38 MUs in 2022-23, and 259.96 MUs in 2023-24. In Non-Solar RPO, the shortfall was 117.41 MUs in 2020-21, 213.83 MUs in 2021-22, and 165.37 MUs in 2023-24. Indian Railways had a surplus in Non-Solar RPO only in 2022-23, with 231.93 MUs surplus energy.

Indian Railways submitted that they had already provided RPO settlement details to MEDA, and that Renewable Energy Certificates purchased in 2020-21 were not correctly recorded. When looking at the cumulative performance for all four years, Indian Railways reported that they met 97.47% of the Non-Solar RPO target with procurement of 1236 MU against the target of 1268.06 MU. However, the cumulative Solar RPO target of 857.66 MU was met only by 379.74 MU, which is about 44.27%.

Indian Railways listed several steps taken to improve compliance. These include Power Purchase Agreements for 50.4 MW Wind power with NVVN, 6 MW Wind power with Sri Pawan Energy, and 50 MW Wind power with Green Infra Wind Energy. They also have PPAs for 61 MW Solar power with Rewa Ultra Mega Solar and 180 MW Solar power with IRCON Renewable Power. In addition, Indian Railways has signed Renewable Energy Round-The-Clock agreements with NTPC Renewable Energy, including 205 MW and 120 MW capacity, where commissioning is expected to start from December 2025 for the 205 MW project.

Indian Railways has spent heavily to meet RPO goals, rising from ₹56.53 Crores in 2020-21 to ₹304.09 Crores in 2022-23 for contracted power, purchases from the energy exchange, and Renewable Energy Certificates. They aim to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030 and have requested permission to meet cumulative RPO shortfalls up to 2025-26 by the end of 2027-28. They expect procurement from renewable sources to exceed their targets from 2026-27 onward and project a cumulative surplus of 1820.08 MUs by 2029-30. They are also exploring floating solar at Igatpuri Lake and a 20 MW battery energy storage system at Thakurli-Mumbai.