The Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) has released a consultative paper on the Draft BERC (Terms and Conditions of Green Energy Open Access) Regulations, 2024. The regulations propose a change in minimum capacity requirement for open access from 1 MW to 100 kW, allowing smaller consumers to participate in green energy procurement. In addition, consumers choosing green energy will be able to procure green power from their discoms.
The regulations also establish a framework for determining the charges related to open access. GEOA consumers are obligated to pay inter-state transmission charges as determined by the central commission. Furthermore, the GEOA consumers are required to pay intra-state transmission charges in multi-year tariff order from time-to-time. Additional surcharge, cross-subsidy surcharge, and wheeling charges will be paid by GEOA consumers as determined by the commission in its retail supply tariff order from time-to-time. Moreover, if a GEOA consumer experiences power outages or other disruptions that prevent them from obtaining power from the generating sources, the standby arrangement will be equivalent to 110 per cent of energy charges. The consumer availing GEOA are also required to pay the following charges determined by the commission. These include: scheduling charges, renewable energy deviation settlement charges, reactive energy charge.
With respect to banking, GEOA customers can bank minimum 30 per cent of their entire consumption of power during the billing period. Banking charges will be set at 8 per cent of the banked energy, deducted in kind. The credit for banked energy cannot be carried forward to subsequent billing cycles and must be adjusted within the same billing cycle as specified in these regulations. Any remaining unused energy will lapse at the end of each billing cycle. Nevertheless, renewable energy generating station will receive renewable energy certificates for the unused energy.