CERC commissions study to access difficulties in power transmission

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has commissioned a study on the planning and pricing of power transmission.

With the entry of merchant and independent power producers, besides the government-owned and public sector agencies, and power from renewable sources, PowerGrid alone would not be able to do the transmission of the entire power produced in the country. There should be more players. With many agencies for power production and for transmission, there should be a system and method for transmission charges. CERC has commissioned a study to go into the details of this emerging scenario, CERC chairman, Pramod Deo, said here on Tuesday .

The power transmission cost should be shared by all users. The early-stage users alone should not be made to bear the entire cost, said CERC chairman, Pramod Deo here on Tuesday.

CERC would have a separate cell for renewable energy. There should be open access for power produced from renewables to enable all states to implement the renewable purchase obligation (RPO). He said some form of penalty was necessary to enforce RPO by different states. About 17 states have announced the quantum of RPO. But many were yet to implement that.

He ruled out the possibility of uniform tariff and uniform RPO in different states as the cost of power from renewables and the potential for power generation were not similar. He said the draft of the proposed renewable energy law would be ready by January 2009 for submission to Parliament.

In his address to the two-day ?Wind India 2008? conference and exhibition which began here on Tuesday, Deo said the scope of generation-based incentive should be widened to attract independent power producers (IPPs) from India and abroad. The earlier incentive of accelerated depreciation policy helped the development of wind power industry. Generation based incentive was a more viable and globally accepted supportive policy for the renewables.

Renewable energy certificates would be another form of incentive. There were certain policy and legal issues that were to be sorted out before its implementation, he said.

The conference and seminar were being organised by the Pune-based World Institute of Sustainable Energy (Wise). There were over 400 participants and 60 exhibitors, director General of Wise, G M Pillai said.

In his presentation, the chairman of Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association, (IWTMA), DV Giri, said though the total wind power generation capacity was nearing 9,000 mw, of late, there has been a fall in the growth rate of annual capacity addition. Growth rate has fallen from a peak of 32.4% in 2005-06 to 24.91% in the following year.

It again fell to18.33% in 2007-08. Absence of certain definite policy issues like RPO, generation-based incentives, grid connection and transmission infrastructure, and on power sale were the reasons for this lull.

Chintan Shah, vice-president and head, strategic business development, Suzlon Energy Ltd, said adding 5,000 mw a year was too ambitious a target to achieve. The current annual capacity addition of wind power was in the range of 1,500 mw to 1,700 mw. It might be possible to take it up to 3,000 mw a year by 2012. Infrastructure issue like land availability, logistics and viability factors including right tariff and fluctuation in the cost of inputs like steel, copper etc were the limiting factors for the growth of the wind power industry in the country.