Govt may amend Electricity Act to allow e-vehicle charging stations to sell power

The Centre is set to make changes to the amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003 to allow electric vehicle charging stations to sell power.

“The NITI Aayog is preparing the roadmap for this. We will propose changes to the amendment to the Electricity Act,” a government official told BusinessLine .

The Electricity Amendment Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2014, and has been pending there since then. “The government will have to introduce changes to the proposed amendment to allow retailing of power by e-vehicle charging stations. This is because the current amendment does not include a provision to allow a non-discom to sell power,” said PK Pujari, former Power Secretary.

Effectively, the charging station will be acting as an intermediary between the discom (distribution company) and the e-vehicle owner, added Pujari.

“At the moment, no one apart from a discom can own power. This means only a discom can set up a charging station,” Saurabh Kumar, Chairman, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd, had told BusinessLine.

“At the moment, there cannot be any private sector participation, unless the regulations allow private players to set up charging stations. This is something the government is working on and I hope it happens very soon, because unless you have charging stations across the country, you cannot expect e-mobility to really happen.”

But the government will also have to define a nodal authority to monitor these charging stations. To this Pujari said: “Since a small business cannot approach the State and Central electricity regulator, the government will also have to establish a nodal authority to regulate and license the charging stations. The discoms can act as regulators for these charging stations and can fix a rate of purchase for them to ensure that there is a margin for the business, too.”

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