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Dispose of NTPC tariff plea in 3 weeks: Court to CERC

The court, for now, has put up the matter for further hearing on July 24.

The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to consider representations by NTPC against the new five-year tariff regulations, which came into effect on April 1 this year and will remain in force till March 31, 2019. The court has directed the electricity regulator to hear NTPC’s plea and dispose it of within the next three weeks.

The court, for now, has put up the matter for further hearing on July 24.

Additionally, CERC will also consider representations by Lanco Power and the Association of Power Producers, who also moved the court against the very tariff norms. Earlier in March, the court had sought reply from the regulator on NTPC’s plea and had directed it to hear the PSU’s submission against the tariff guidelines.

After NTPC, the Association of Power Producers (APP), an organisation that includes Tata Power, Reliance Power and the Adani Group, had also moved the Delhi High Court arguing that the new guidelines ?unjustifiably impose such conditions that are either impossible to satisfy or can be met only at the cost of severe detriment to the business of the private power project developers.?

APP is a body of majority of the private power project developers (currently 29 developers) in the country who constitute over 90% of the existing and planned power capacity in the private sector.

Earlier on March 19, NTPC had unsuccessfully moved the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on the new CERC tariff regulations. The high court, acting on NTPC’s plea, had refused to grant a stay on the guidelines which the PSU argued would hit it badly and had directed CERC to consider representations made by the PSU against the tariff regulations.

Repeating its earlier order, the HC on Monday also directed APP to make representations against the new guidelines before the CERC.

NTPC, in its petition, had sought that the measure of Gross Calorific Value of coal should be on the “as received” basis and not on the “as fired” basis. Additionally, the petition also sought that a normative station heat rate should be specified in the regulations, along with other specifications on auxiliary energy consumption and oil fuel consumption. The plea demanded that auxiliary energy consumption should be capped at 5.25%.

In a public hearing held by CERC on draft tariff regulations 2014-19 in January, NTPC had pleaded with the regulator not to go ahead with the proposed changes. The regulator did provide some sops, such as reduction in threshold PLF for payment of generation incentives from 85% to 83%, relaxation in operational efficiency parameters for ageing 200 mw units and recovery of water charges. However, NTPC remained unhappy.

One of the key changes in the new regulations is in respect of the payment of generation incentives to developers ? from plant availability factor (PAF) to plant load factor (PLF). While PAF means declared capacity availability for generation, PLF stands for actual electricity generation by a plant. While NTPC has control over PAF, PLF could vary, depending on factors like fuel availability and offtake of electricity by discoms.

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First published on: 20-05-2014 at 05:33 IST
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