RPO for Delhi DISCOMs may soon be ebforced

Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) is likely to implement renewable power obligation (RPO) for the city's discoms, Tata Delhi Power, BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna, in the new tariff announcement for financial year 2012-13. This means that the power companies will be obligated to source a fixed percentage of their total power requirement from renewable sources.

DERC had put out a draft renewable energy obligation proposal some months back and had sought public response. "We have sought feedback for implementing regulations for prescribing a fixed percentage of renewable energy in discom's power requirement. During the public hearing that will be held later, we will take public comments on how much percentage should be included in energy purchase and decide accordingly. Discoms will either have to procure this percentage of renewable energy, generate it themselves or buy renewable energy certificates (REC) for the fixed percentage from the energy exchange,'' said a senior DERC official.

Delhi is one of the few states that do not have an RPO and sources said that there was a lot of pressure on the government to announce the RPO for discoms from the new financial year. Gujarat, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu are some of the states that have RPOs in place. World wide, California has the largest RPO of 25%. REC trading started in India last year. Renewable energy sources in India are wind, solar, biofuel, geothermal and hydro.

Discom BSES, meanwhile, said that before announcing RPO, the regulator has to give them the means to purchase renewable power. "Solar power costs Rs 18 per unit and we do not have the means to buy it. We have prepared a detailed project report to generate 280KW of solar power and are waiting for the feed-in tariff to be announced,'' said a BSES official. The regulator said that if they announced RPO, they would factor in the overall power purchase cost though the impact on the discoms would be minimal.

While Tata Delhi Power has taken the lead in solar power generation in the city, BSES officials insisted they were not far behind. "Our plan for having roof-top solar panels had almost fructified, but there was a sudden change in government policy and our plans are on hold. We are hoping that the policy comes through otherwise since Delhi has no available land mass for setting up solar panels, we will have to enter into power purchase agreements outside Delhi," said a senior BSES official.