Grid charges waiver for electricity transmission is now extended to solar and wind projects to be commissioned up to June 30, 2025, as per a power ministry notification today. The ministry clarified that the waiver is allowed for inter-state transmission charges only and not losses.
With this, solar and wind projects commissioned up to June 30, 2025 will secure a 25-year exemption from the grid charges post-commissioning. Earlier, the waiver was available to solar and wind projects commissioned up to June 30, 2023.
The waiver is also allowed for pumped-hydro storage and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects to be commissioned up to June 30, 2025, provided they derive a certain percentage of their electricity requirements from renewables.
Specifically, to avail of the waiver, the pumped-hydro storage projects must meet at least 70% of their annual electricity required to pump water from electricity generated from solar and/or wind power plants. The battery energy storage systems should also meet at least 70% of their annual electricity requirement for charging from the electricity generated by solar and/or wind power plants.
“The ISTS charges for power generated/supplied from such pumped-hydro storage and BESS shall be levied gradually: 25% of the short-term open access (STOA) charges for initial five years of operation, then charges can be gradually increased in steps of 25% after every third year to reach to 100% of STOA charges from twelfth year onwards. This may be aligned with the gradual reduction in tariff and payment of debt,” as per the power ministry notification.
Waiver of transmission charges shall be allowed for the trading of electricity generated/supplied from solar, wind, pumped-hydro storage, and BESS in green term-ahead market (GTAM) and green day-ahead market (GDAM) for two years, i.e., till June 30, 2023. This arrangement will be reviewed on an annual basis depending upon the future development in the power market.
Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, chief executive officer of industry body National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI), hailed the decision terming it “both a foresighted decision and a right step forward for India’s ambitious energy transition goals,” while calling for an extension to losses waiver too.
“This extension will go a long way into ensuring the better proliferation of Renewables, especially storage, in India. Not to mention the positive impact it will have on GTAM and GDAM. Overall we are very thankful to the Ministry for accepting one of Industry’s long-standing requests. However, we will request them further to include losses waiver also in the extension to support the industry,” Pulipaka said.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.