The Hindu Business Line : Wind power body asks TN electricity regulator to hike tariff

Chennai, Dec. 1 The Indian Wind Power Association, while welcoming the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) order approving its petition seeking permission to let wind energy generators bank energy, has asked the commission to hike the tariff to make investments in wind mills viable in the State.

According to a press release from the association, the TNERC, through an order on November 21, has directed the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) to let the wind energy generators use the banked energy in five equal monthly instalments from December 2008 to April 2009.

In its petition, the association had said that following the acute shortage of power in the State, the TNEB, which imposed restrictive and control measures with effect from November, had ignored the banked energy while working out the quota of power that can be used by the units with captive wind power generation facilities.

Banked energy is the surplus energy that wind energy generators produce over and above their own consumption during the windy season. Under the wheeling agreement with TNEB, the generators bank the excess power during the season and use it during the non-wind season, after paying the banking charges. The petition also pointed out that other captive power generators were allowed to use the power generated by them over and above the quota fixed by the electricity board.

The association has also asked the regulatory commission to fix a tariff of Rs 3.90 a unit as the present tariff of Rs 2.70 a unit paid by TNEB to the wind energy generators had not been revised since 2001.

The association said that the cost of wind electric generators has increased to Rs 6.75 crore a MW from Rs 4.50 crore earlier and interest rates had increased to 14 per cent.

It is because of the unviable tariff and restrictive practices of the TNEB that expansion of wind energy capacity in Tamil Nadu had been affected in the last two years while Gujarat and other States were seeing high growth in capacity addition, the release said.

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