Despite strong opposition from environmentalists, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has agreed to the demand of the discoms to waive their renewable power obligations (RPO). While the move has resulted in a deficit of power from renewable sources accounting to over 10 per cent, the decision also means that the defaulting discoms would not be penalised by the power regulator despite their repeated failures to meet the minimum RPO.
Instead of imposing fines on the discoms for not meeting the set RPO, the Commission has allowed the distribution companies to carry forward their RPO of last year to the current fiscal. The decision came after the discoms requested the regulator to either waive their RPO or consider carrying forward the commitment to subsequent years.
The scheme, which became a part of the tariff from financial year 2012-13, makes it obligatory for discoms to source a fixed percentage of the total power from renewable sources. In 2012-13 the target for the discoms was 3 per cent, in 2013-14 it was 4.2 per cent and this year it is 5.4 per cent, which in total makes 12.6 per cent.
Senior campaigner from Greenpeace India, Abhishek Pratap, claimed that the Delhi discoms’ meeting percentage is “almost zero” and thereby they should have been penalised by the regulator. “Going by the power regulator’s decision to carry forward their overall the discoms have the challenge to meet in total 13.2 per cent, some thing which Pratap said is not going to deliver much given the non-serious attitude of the discoms. Since the year 2012-13 the discoms have largely failed to fulfil their obligation to source a partial share of power from green and renewable sources,” alleged Pratap.
He further went on to add that Delhi stays at the bottom nationally on the issue of meeting its RPO obligations. “Even a State like Bihar tries to meet some share of its total obligation on sourcing power from green sources. But the Delhi discoms are hardly bothered. If the discoms cannot meet a target of 4.2 per cent, how are they going to meet the total target of target of 12.6 per cent next yearIJ” he questioned.
Justifying the move the DERC attributed it to high investment costs involved in setting up of the initial inventory for generation of power through renewable sources. “The renewable power available in Delhi is limited and the discoms, in the present scenario, are finding it difficult to meet the RPO obligations. These are the initial years of the discoms experiment with green energy as it takes some time to establish the set up and they have partially managed to meet the target,” said a DERC official.