VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) will conduct a public hearing on December 7 on the joint petition filed by State discoms seeking revision of tariff payable to wind and solar power developers, who entered into Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)/Power Sale Agreements (PSAs) during 2012-2016.
The hearing will also include taking suggestions/objections from stakeholders regarding the appeal made by the discoms to restrict the PPAs’ tenure to 5-10 years instead of existing 25 years.
In the petition, APSPDCL and APEPDCL stated that the tariff of wind and solar power generation has come down over the years and yet they were paying a high price due to the PPAs.
They noted that procurement of renewable power at higher prices, when conventional power is available at lower prices, burdened the discoms so much that monthly power purchase bills could not be paid from August 2018.
They added that the must-run clause in the renewable PPAs was preventing them from going for conventional energy.
And for backing down thermal power to use renewable, the discoms were paying back down charges as well.
All these were prejudicial to the State’s interest and warrants a revision, the petitioners contended.
The petitioners, making 24 wind and 32 solar power generators as the respondents, appealed to the commission to revise the solar tariff by reducing the same to Rs 2.44/unit and wind to Rs 2.43/ unit from 2019 in “public interest and in the interest of justice”.
The discoms noted that they were paying Rs 4.7 to Rs 4.84 per unit of renewable energy.
It may be noted that the power utilities, citing financial burden, had decided to review the PPAs and constituted a high-level negotiation committee to review/renegotiate with the power developers, kicking up controversy.
The Centre too had warned multiple times that review of PPAs may hamper investment trends.
When the power developers moved the High Court, the bench disposed of the matter directing them to raise objections before the APERC and asked the Commission to resolve the issue within six months.