TNERC publishes draft green energy open access regulations to promote renewable energy generation

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission has released the draft Open Access Green Power Rules, 2024 to enable consumers with a connected load of 63 KVA or more to directly source green power from generators or from the open market, bypassing distribution companies, such as TANGEDCO. Stakeholders are invited to submit their views on the project by July 5, 2024.

The aim of the regulations is to facilitate the use of renewable energy sources by ensuring non-discriminatory access to the state transmission and distribution system.

The regulations extend concessional transmission and taxiing charges only to intra-state renewable energy transactions within Tamil Nadu.

The scope of the regulations covers the entire country and applies to both intra-state transmission systems and distribution systems. This aims to streamline the process for consumers and generators who want to use green energy sources, while providing the necessary infrastructure and regulatory framework to support this transition.

In order to promote the installation of renewable energy generating stations in Tamil Nadu and keeping in view the constraints of transmission corridors in inter-state transactions, it has been decided to extend concessional transmission and taxiing charges only in case of intra-state renewable energy transactions and in case of renewable energy transactions through inter-state/power exchange route, reduced transmission and taxiing fees would not increase.

Additionally, the Commission has implemented the Deviation Settlement Mechanism with effect from April 1, 2024.

This involves recording the production and consumption of energy in a block of time in the billing period and correcting the energy in a block of time for the billing period. Excess consumption will be charged to the consumer at the applicable tariff, subject to delivery conditions.

In 2022, the Union Ministry of Power introduced open access green energy rules to help achieve the country’s target of installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030, as part of its carbon neutrality target coal by 2070