TNERC Draft Intrastate Regulation on Forecasting and Scheduling of Wind and Solar Generating Stations

The Forum of Regulators recently announced a Model Regulation on intra-state RE deviation settlement regulation which will cover all the existing and upcoming wind and solar power producers in India. States like Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh electricity regulators have already announced their draft regulation on wind/solar forecasting and scheduling, in line with FOR’s Model Regulation.
Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission also, recently came up with its first Intrastate draft regulation on Forecasting and Scheduling of Wind and Solar Generating stations.
Detailed Analysis
The draft regulation broadly covers the following aspects:

• Mandatory forecasting and scheduling of all the existing and upcoming wind/solar power generation at interstate level.
• The state load dispatch centers are also mandated to carry out their own parallel forecasting mechanism primarily to manage secure grid operations.
• A wind/solar power producer can either choose to have his own forecast or opt for SLDC’s forecast for the scheduling purpose. The deviations arising due to a difference between the scheduled generation and actual generation will be settled as per the penalty mechanism adopted under the respective regulations.
• Similar to the FOR’s Model Regulation the Qualified Coordinating Agency (QCA) will manage the entire exercise of forecasting, scheduling, energy metering, telemetry, deviation management and penalty de-pooling at every wind/solar pooling station.
• In deviation Settlement, the deviations and errors are quantified w.r.t available generation capacity at the time of scheduling. This will reduce the absolute error magnitude especially during low wind/solar seasons and thus reducing the penalty amount that a generator may have to absorb.
• A permissible deviation band of +/-10% (w.r.t available capacity) and a permissible deviation band of within 5 % (w.r.t available capacity) have been permitted without any penalty separately for all the existing wind and solar power producers respectively.
• Deviation Charges in case of under or over-injection by wind generators, for sale of power within the State.

• Deviation Charges in case of under or over-injection by solar generators, for sale of power within the State.

• Though the draft regulation is in line with the Model Regulation. The table below depicts how the two regulations vary with each other in terms of the Deviation charges and the deviation band for solar and wind generators :