RERC Asks Railways To Install ABT Meters To Avail Wind Energy From Rajasthan

Highlights :

* Indian Railways consumes wind energy from a 26-Megawatt Wind Power Plant at Jaisalmer under open access.

* The discoms told RERC that the charges under open access were not at par with the expenditures incurred by the state discoms.

In its latest order, the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC) asked the Indian Railways to install ABT (Availability Based Tariff) Meters for hassle-free consumption of green energy from Rajasthan. ABT Meters are frequency-based price mechanisms mainly used when unscheduled electricity-related transactions occur.

The RERC order came to the fore after the discoms in Rajasthan moved a petition before the state commission seeking its intervention. The discoms claimed that the central government entity, which is also a deemed licensee, draws renewable power from several states, including Rajasthan. Indian Railways consumes wind energy from a 26 Megawatt Wind Power Plant at Jaisalmer under open access to cater to its energy needs.

In Rajasthan, the department transfers the wind energy from Jaisalmer to its 12 traction substations within the state. The state discoms, however, were aggrieved that the under-injection/over-injection of such power and the payment to discoms under this arrangement were allegedly not at par with the expenditures incurred by the distribution companies.

The discoms, in their petition, said that due to such deviations, the charges payable by the State to Northern Region Load Despatch Centre ('NRLDC') via the state DSM pool were significantly higher than the charges levied upon the Indian Railways. These charges were levied as per the Regulations of the RERC (Forecasting, Scheduling, Deviation Settlement, and Related Matters of Solar and Wind Generation Sources).

The petitioners, therefore, said there was a discrepancy in the applicability of these Regulations under such conditions. Accordingly, the petition had asked the Commission to consider making amendments to these Regulations to tackle such discrepancies.

In its final order, the Commission directed the Indian Railways to install ABT meters at the 33 KV Railway feeder at 220 KV GSS Dangri Pooling Station with Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) facility, which should be integrated with the SLDC system.

It also put the onus of the cost bearing on the railways itself. It also asked the SLDC to prepare the drawl schedule of the railways considering the actual generation from their RE generator instead of the scheduled generation. RERC said that the deviation charges might be worked out at drawl points. The order will be effective prospectively from July 1, 2023.

The Indian Railways are now expanding their footprints in green energy. The department has planned to go net zero by the end of 2030. It has also started increased installation of solar panels onto the rooftops of railway platforms and railway-owned buildings.