Bill to provide choice of multiple service providers to power consumers likely in Parliament's monsoon session

The Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021, aimed at enabling consumers to choose between multiple service providers just like in the case of telecom services, is likely to be introduced and pushed for passage in the monsoon session of the Parliament scheduled to begin in July.

Addressing the India Energy Transmission Summit 2022 organized by FICCI, Union power minister R K Singh on Thursday said that everybody (all ministries, and stakeholders) is on board with the amendments to the Electricity Act.

He informed, ''We (power ministry) should be able to take it forward to the Parliament in the monsoon session.'' The monsoon session is likely to begin in the later part of July 2022.

The bill provides for de-licensing of the distribution business to promote competition, the appointment of a member from a law background in every commission, strengthening of Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL), and prescribes rights and duties of consumers.

Singh also proposed that there will be a separate Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) for wind energy for boosting this clean source.

Under the RPO, bulk purchasers like discoms, open access consumers, and capacitive users are required to buy a certain proportion of renewable energy. They can also buy RECs from renewable energy producers to meet the RPO norms.

Singh also stated that the ministry has finalized the plan to set up 30,000 MW of hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh and work on five hydro projects in J&K has been started.

The minister hinted at more incentives for the production of green hydrogen in the country.

He was of the view that if the vision for green hydrogen, electric vehicles, and turning all industries on green energy is realized then India can achieve 700GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, higher than the targeted 500GW.

The minister opined that now power demand baseline will be 205GW and it would further go up in the coming days.

He also talked about other incentives for the discoms like waving off surcharges for making timely payment of the installments of their dues.

''If discoms fail to pay installments on time their electricity access will be curtailed. Short-term access to electricity purchases will completely be curtailed. Long-term access to electricity will be reduced by 10 percent every month.'' he stated.

He assured the industry players that bids for the renewable energy projects will keep coming and asked them to be ready to be part of this energy transition in the country.

Union power secretary Alok Kumar emphasized bringing down the import dependency of the country through the energy transition.

The government has planned to continue the grid expansion project in a big way, the power secretary said, adding that coal is going to be the backbone of energy generation for the next 20 years or so.

He informed us that the power ministry is working on bundling of renewable energy with thermal power in the PPA (Power Purchase Agreement).

''We can not go with a long-duration PPA model. We should plan for PPA for a maximum of 12-15 years period. It is need of the hour to bring a framework for short-term PPA for renewable energy as well,'' he stated.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)