BHUBANESWAR: Grid Corporation of Odisha limited (gridco), the bulk power supplier to the State, has requested the Odisha Electricity regulatory Commission (OErC) for a hike in bulk supply price by 37 per cent to meet its annual revenue requirement for 2021-22. Filing its aggregated revenue requirement (Arr) and bulk supply price (BSP) applications before the OErC for the coming financial year(FY), the bulk power trading utility has estimated its net revenue requirement at Rs 10,745.42 crore.
Projecting a net energy demand of 27,315.02 million units (Mu) for the four distribution companies - tPCODl, nESCO, SOuthCO and WESCO, the petitioner said it will face a revenue deficit of Rs 2,899.02 crore from energy sale at the existing average BSP of 287.70 paise per unit for FY 2021-22.
“Revenue of Rs 7,846.41 crore is estimated to be earned from sale of energy of 27,315.02 Mu to distribution companies during FY 2021-22. it will result in revenue deficit of Rs 2,899.02 crore,” gridco said.
In order to make up for the revenue deficit, gridco proposed a BSP of 393.39 P/u (energy charge only) for the next fiscal to recover its Arr of Rs 10,745.42 crore.
Estimating the actual power purchase cost at Rs 10.788.19 crore, after taking into consideration of three pc transmission losses, gridco said it would be required to buy 28,221.67 Mu for the coming financial year. Justifying the demand for an upward revision of BSP, the power trading utility said, it has total outstanding loans of Rs 6,564 crore as on March 31, 2020.
“The repayment liability for 2021-22 is Rs 1164.97 crore towards loans taken from commercial banks (except State govt loan, ntPC bonds),” gridco said. the huge cash deficit is due to non-cost reflective BSP tariffs, disallowance of carrying cost of regulatory assets by OErC in past years, outstanding receivables from discoms and other factors. gridco has been meeting these cash deficit through loans from open market.
In addition to an enhanced BSP, gridco has requested the regulator to create a separate mechanism to repay loan liability under special appropriation of Rs 1164.97 crore for 2021-22. it further requested the commission to create separate mechanism to amortize regulatory asset of Rs 3,588 crore approved by OErC (till FY14-15) which has accumulated to Rs 6,257.22 crore till 2020-21.
OErC had revised BSP tariff for gridco by six per cent with effect from October 1, 2020. the BSP revision had consequential effect on the retail supply tariff (rSt) which increased by 20 paise per unit.
