TNERC announces new Solar Tariff
Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission in its latest order dated 12th September has determined tariff for solar power projects. The new tariff will be applicable to the solar projects commissioned in next one year. The order has come in force from its date of issue i.e. from 12th September itself.
The details of the tariff determined are given below:
Open Access charges – The commission as promotional measure has decided to adopt 30% of respective charges, in each of the transmission, wheeling, scheduling and system operation charges to solar power. While for the plants availing REC’s, 100% relevant charges will be applicable. Apart from this the Reactive Energy charges and 30% of parallel operation charges will be applicable.
Cross Subsidy Surcharge – 50 % of the cross subsidy surcharge will be applicable for solar power, same is applicable for other renewable power.
The Tariff determined by TNERC is lower compared to the tariff determined by CERC, as the commission has offered a waiver in the CSS and wheeling charges in order to compensate the difference with the added operational incentives.
Tamil Nadu released its Solar Policy in 2012 with a target of 3GW of solar power by 2015, while the state had an installed capacity of 109.26 MW on 31st July 2014. The new tariffs along with waiver in Open Access charges, will result in more investments in the coming year. In addition to this, if SPO is implemented in the state, it will be a major shot in the arm for Solar power in TN, without which the target seems like a distant reality.
The relevant order can be accessed here.
Our Previous blog post on TN SPO case with APTEL can be read here.
Contributed by Dheeraj Babariya.