The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has released the revised procedure for the “grant of connectivity to projects based on renewable sources to inter-state transmission system”.
The move comes in the wake of concerns flagged by a number of renewable energy players that they have been crowded out by other applicants, including some green power companies and even wind equipment manufacturers, which had pre-booked the right to access the connectivity bays at the sub-stations of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited. Developers had last week strongly urged that forthcoming NTPC Limited and Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited auctions be postponed till CERC guidelines were finalised. PGCIL too had flagged the issue to CERC earlier by pointing to some 35 players which had obtained connectivity rights at its sub-stations and taken control of one or more connectivity bays, but were not using them to transmit power.
In the new order, to ensure that all connectivity bays are fully put to use, sharing of spare capacity in the connectivity bays has been made mandatory. The bank guarantee amount for granting grid connectivity has also been increased. This will certainly weed out some non-serious applicants of grid connectivity.