Amendment to Grid Code & Frequency for UI charges finalised by CERC
Hon’ble CERC within the very first week of 2014, has come up with amendments to two important regulations pertaining to Indian power sector. The commission rolled out the following regulations (orders can be accessed by clicking links below):
In the following section, we limit our analysis to various amendments relating to the RRF mechanism.The Statement of Reason (SOR) for the changes has not yet been made available in the CERC website. We will share a more detailed analysis and the SOR when it is made available. These key changes (in context of RRF mechanism) are analysed and enumerated below:
- Definition of pooling substation has been modified. In the draft Amendment, the implication was that new capacity being added on old sub-stations would be covered under the RRF mechanism. However, this stand has now been reversed – only those sub-stations commissioned after 3/5/2010 are covered under the RRF mechanism
- Scheduling has been in effect from 15/7/2013. One revision for each time slot of 3 hours starting from 00:00 hours of a particular day subject to maximum of 8 revisions during the day are allowed.
- The forecast is required to achieve an accuracy of 70%. Therefore deviation beyond +/- 30% will attract UI charges to be borne by the generator. However, this clause will become applicable from a date to be specified by CERC in the future. (Clause 5 of Annexure I of IEGC)
- It is noteworthy that Clause 6 of Annexure I of IEGC which restricts the deviation to 150% of the schedule still remains intact. In case generation exceeds 150% of the generation, a fixed UI charge (corresponding to 50-50.02 HZ) will be payable, and the PPA rate will not be payable.
- The above changes will come into effect from 17/2/2014
In another important regulation released by CERC, the commission has finalized a narrowed frequency band for charging deviation based on unscheduled interchange (UI).The UI charges finalized in the latest CERC (Deviation Settlement Mechanism and related matters) Regulations, 2014, is at variance with that proposed in draft notification (refer) issued on 20th June 2013. The new UI charges have maintained clemency for generators (refer graph below).
Our previous posts on RRF Mechanism can be read here.