Delhi Draft RPO Published

Delhi published its draft RPO regulation recently. The highlights are:

• 2% RPO in first year, increasing to 3.4% next year and going up to 9% by 2016-17
• Obligation is on Distribution Licensees, Captive Consumers (>5MW capacity and using conventional sources of energy) and Open Access users (from conventional sources of energy)

RPO regulation from Delhi was long awaited, as it is a region with significant consumption, and also one of the last few states to come out with the regulation. Andhra Pradesh is the last remaining major state.
A quick analysis of the draft regulation suggests that it is primarily in line with the model regulations drafted by Forum of Regulators (FOR). However, certain things stand out:

• Obligation is on captive users with >5MW of capacity – this is in contrast with most states, which have a 1MW limit
• The obligation is on captive users “using other than renewable energy sources exceeding”. We believe this is in contrast to section 86(e) of the Electricity Act, which requires RPO on ‘consumers’ of electricity. Exempting one category of consumers (in this case RE consumers) will contradict the provisions of the act. This was also laid out the opinion given to FOR by the Solicitor General. Other states impose RPO on all consumers, and if the consumer happens to be generating power from RE sources then he is allowed to fulfill such an RPO from its own RE use.

The Draft regulation and SOR can be found by clicking on the respective links.
 
Try India’s First Online RPO Calculator here