FM Jaitley says govt to add 20,000 MW capacity through solar parks
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the government would take up the second phase of solar park development in the country to add additional 20,000 Megawatt capacity in the country. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has drawn a scheme to set up number of solar parks across various states in the country, each with a capacity of above 500 MW. The scheme proposes to provide financial support by the government to establish solar parks with an aim to facilitate creation of infrastructure necessary for setting up new solar power projects in terms of allocation of land, transmission and evacuation lines, access roads, availability of water and others, in a focused manner. India plans to have a total renewable energy capacity of 175 Gigawatt by 2022 and in order to achieve that target, the government plans to implement solar parks, solar defence schemes, solar scheme for review of economic developments 167 PSUs, solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plants on canal bank and canal tops, solar pump, solar rooftop, etc. Su’a Cravens Authentic Jersey
FM Jaitley says solar power to feed 7,000 railway stations
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced that around 7,000 railway stations would be fed through solar power in the medium term and work has already begun in that respect in 300 stations. “It is proposed to feed at least 7,000 stations with solar power in the medium term. A beginning has already been made in 300 stations,” Jaitley said in his Budget 2017 speech in Parliament today. He also said work will be taken up for 2000 stations as part of the government’s 1000 Megawatt solar mission. Earlier, Indian Railways had said it has finalised a policy for harnessing solar energy on rooftops of railway premises. The policy provided for setting up solar power plants through developer mode with a long term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by railways. In order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the government had said it intended to expand sourcing of solar power as part of the Solar Mission of Indian Railways. The government had said by generating electricity from solar panels, there will be proportionate reduction in consumption of fossil fuels. D.J. Humphries Womens Jersey
UP dithering on 24X7 power supply document: Piyush Goyal
Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal has charged the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh with dithering on the central plan to provide 24-hour electricity to all households. Talking to Business Standard in Lucknow, Goyal claimed all the state governments and Union Territories had signed the 24X7 power document mooted by the Centre except for UP. “We had proposed that the Centre and states could work together as a team to provide 24-hour power supply to all households,” he said and lamented while all the state governments and Union Territories had agreed with the proposal and came on board, the UP government has still not signed it. Goyal had accompanied Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah on Saturday to release the party’s 2017 election document, which included the promise to provide 24-hour power supply if it comes to power in the state. He claimed about 15 million rural and 3 million urban households in UP or roughly 40 per cent of the state’s population was deprived of power connection. He castigated the successive Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) governments in UP, which have been ruling the state for the last 15 years for the sorry state of affairs, especially in power sector. “Why despite the Centre providing thousands of crores (funds), highest power allocation in the country, still the UP government over the last 15 years has not been able to provide power to poor households,” he underlined and mentioned free power scheme was largely being centrally funded. Replying to a question, Goyal said the biggest pitfall with regards to the UP power sector was the lack of political will to implement the central schemes and take power to every household. He also alleged largely scale corruption in the sector, which manifested in power theft and illegal connections. “We have found 60,000 faults with regards to quality in rural electrification programme in UP, which has been notified to the state government but no action has been taken,” he claimed. He further said energy exchanges could only provide power during emergencies and does not ordinarily took care of base load, for which purchase agreements (PPA) were needed. “However, the important thing is if PPAs are signed in a transparent and honest manner through bidding or surreptitiously. The important thing to see is if the state was buying power under PPAs to serve people or whether despite having adequate power and power capacity, the state government is signing new PPAs,” he added. He maintained there was sufficient power availability in the country, even if UP doubled its power consumption. Sam Martin Jersey
Are Modi government’s power promises being fulfilled?
One of the big promises of the Modi government was that of ensuring electricity for all, and particularly in rural India. In fact, the promise was for reliable power access for all, which formed a major part of Modi’s campaign pledges in 2014.This received specific emphasis in last year’s Budget Speech, when it was promised that the rural goal would be achieved by March 2017. On the face of it, this promise seems to be achieved — according to the central government, as of now, 591,685 out of 597,464 census villages (or 99 per cent) have been electrified. This is not as remarkable an achievement as might be thought, because in fact much of this had been done before the tenure of the present government, as Chart 1 indicates. RGGVY and after The big push to rural electrification came in 2005 with the launch of the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) and then accelerated further in 2010-11, when there was a significant increase in budgetary outlay for this. True to form, the Modi government has basically renamed the scheme, to Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, and then sought to take credit for all of it. Since taking power, the Modi government has added another 19,219 villages (or 3.2 per cent of the electrified villages) to this total, thereby bringing it close to the total number of villages. But even this does not reflect the actual position of access to electricity. Since 2005, a village has been deemed to be electrified if: Basic infrastructure such as distribution transformer and distribution lines are provided in the inhabited locality as well as the dalit basti/hamlet where it exists. Electricity is provided to public places such as schools, panchayat office, health centres, dispensaries, community centres, etc. The number of households electrified is at least 10 per cent of the total number of households in the village. Note that this requires only the provision of the electricity line to that point, not actual continuous access. It does not account for the regularity or consistency of the power received. So even if a few houses in a village receives only a couple hours of electricity a day for a few days in the year, the village is still deemed to be electrified. After electrification, therefore, there is the further process that is described as “intensification” by the government, in which individual households are electrified until all households are provided access. As it happens, this process is ongoing in all States and in all villages including those that have been deemed to be electrified for many years, such as in Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra. The proportion of households with access to electricity differs significantly from the proportion of villages electrified. The chart below provides evidence on the proportion of households with access to electricity across States. Gaps in the process It turns out that only around 71 per cent of all households in the country have electricity (and even this need not be regular or reliable) — but this covers both urban and rural areas. Clearly, rural access would be lower than for urban households, and some have estimated that for India as a whole, only around 60 per cent of rural households have some access to electricity — which means that still two-fifths of rural households do not. Obviously, there are significant regional variations to this. The latest data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) carried out in 2015-16 provide some indication of this, even though the data are still not available for some States including populous Uttar Pradesh. It is evident that, while some States have achieved near-universal electricity access, several still show very large gaps, such as Bihar and Assam. But is it really the case that even in the apparently more successful States, most households have access to reliable electricity? One way of checking this is by examining the data revealed by satellite imaging technology that captures how much of an area is actually illuminated when it should be at night. A study of 20 years of such data by researchers at the University of Michigan reveals that the official estimates of this are probably over-optimistic. Consider Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, which had reportedly achieved 100 per cent electrification of all rural households by 2007. The satellite imagery of lights at night in December 2013 tell a somewhat different story. The image refers to December 2013. In Andhra Pradesh, while rural areas of Telengana and northern Coastal Andhra do appear bright enough to suggest that electricity coverage is widespread if not universal, the areas of Rayalaseema and southern Coastal Andhra are mostly dark. Similarly, in Gujarat, the districts of Rajkot and Surendranagar appear really dark compared to the brighter lights to the east, even as the easternmost districts of Dohad and Narmada are also much darker than the western coastal areas. Why is this the case? One likely answer is that having access to electricity or an electricity connection are not enough — both affordability and reliability of the electricity supply are critical, and these are often what is lacking for many rural households. A 2015 study by the Council for Energy Environment and Water (Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Water; Survey of States, 2015), surveyed access to electricity in rural areas of six States: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. Dark spots The survey revealed that in these six States, whatever be the official statistics on electricity access, on the ground the situation is quite shocking. On a scale of 0 to 100, the electricity index across the six States ranged from as low as 8.1 for Bihar to 41.8 for West Bengal. One particularly startling finding was that, among the households with the lowest level of access (or no access to electricity) around half actually had electricity connections, and therefore were officially classified as households with electricity. The important issues here were the quality of the connection, the reliability of the power and
Power ministry working on mega push for village electrification next fiscal
The power ministry has worked out a mega expansion plan for village electrification in the coming financial year that is likely to require spending upwards of Rs 16,500 crore through a slew of central schemes including the flagship Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY). The blueprint of the plan has been worked out as part of the efforts to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of 100 per cent village electrification and round-the-clock power for all by 2019. The idea is to cover 2,984 villages under DDUGJY apart from extending electricity connections to 4 million Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in the coming year. Apart from Rs 16,500 crore needed for village electrification schemes, the ministry has projected separate fund requirement under other central schemes – Rs 5,700 crore for Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS); Rs 1,548 crore for power system improvement in the North-East excluding Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim; Rs 1,500 crore for transmission system strengthening in the two states and Rs 312 crore for setting up a 220 Kilovolt transmission line from Srinagar to Leh. The discussions on the fund requirement roadmap for 2017-18 have also involved the government’s think-tank NITI Aayog. The plan includes funding of Rs 790 crore required for the Power System Development Fund (PSDF) and utilization of gas-based generation capacity. Of the 47 projects approved under PSDF by November 2016, five are expected to be commissioned in 2017-18, according to a senior official. The ministry is also planning to spend Rs 180 crore for the smart grid programme under which 6-10 new projects will be launched along with the ongoing ones. The rest of the fund requirement includes Rs 70 crore for Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Rs 250 crore for Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) at Bengaluru and Rs 40 crore for National Power Training Institute (NPTI). Oren Burks Jersey
Nepal to increase power import from India to plug demand-supply gap
Hydropower rich, Himalayan country Nepal is going to increase its power import from India to plug up own winter time demand-supply gap. In addition to its existing 350MW import, Nepal will take additional 25MW from India as per a power purchase agreement signed between Nepal Electricity Authority(NEA) and NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd. of India. As Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Deputy Managing Director Rajeev Sharma puts it, “This 25 MW is quite significant for the small power system of Nepal.” The additional intake will take place through a cross country transmission line between Dhalkebar in Nepal and –Muzaffarpur in Indian state Bihar. At existing tariff of INR 3.6 per unit, the increased import is likely to continue till arrival of rainfall in the Himalayan terrain in May – informed a NEA official. Against total theoretically gigantic hydropower potential of over 83,000 MW, Nepal’s Economically feasible potential is 43,000 MW. But its existing capacity is less than 1000MW. Against peak demand of around 950MW, the countries production during dry winter goes as low as 450MW due to lack of water flow along the streams forcing the country to import power from India. Eventually, the transmission lines used to import this power always remain in Nepal policy maker’s priority list. Nepal’s imports total 350MW from India through four cross country lines. Kataiya-Kushhawa line carries 120MW, 30MW goes through Tanakpur-Mahendranagar and 25MW goes through Ramnagar-Gandak transmission lines. Remaining 120MW is received by Nepal through Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur. This route is under capacity augmentation process to have a handling capacity of 280 MW. Nepal has a set plan to establish 2200 MW fresh generation capacity and 3000km transmission lines by 2020. In addition, there are plans for other projects of total 2300MW to be developed by Indian Companies. Once established, these new projects will make Nepal a major power exporting country in South Asian region. At the same time, India, being the major contributor to these projects and next door neighbor of Nepal, will be one of the largest beneficiaries of the augmented volume of produced power. Chris Doleman Authentic Jersey
Myth busted: Study reveals storing solar power increases emissions, consumption
In a myth-busting revelation, a study has found out that storing solar energy for night time use actually increases both energy consumption and emissions compared with sending excess solar energy directly to the utility grid. In a paper published in Nature Energy, researchers assessed the trade-offs of adding home energy storage to households with existing solar panels, shedding light on the benefits and drawbacks of adding storage considering today’s full energy grid mix. According to research from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, homes with solar panels do not require on-site storage to reap the biggest economic and environmental benefits of solar energy. According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, the number of rooftop solar installations grew to more than 1 million U.S. households in 2016. There is a growing interest in using energy storage to capture solar energy to reduce reliance on traditional utilities. But for now, few homes have on-site storage to hold their solar energy for later use in the home. Michael Webber said.” The good news is that storage isn’t required to make solar panels useful or cost-effective. This also counters the prevailing myth that storage is needed to integrate distributed solar power just because it doesn’t produce energy at night”. The researchers found that storing solar energy for nighttime use increases a household’s annual energy consumption, in comparison with using solar panels without storage, because storage consumes some energy every time it charges and discharges. The researchers estimated that adding energy storage to a household with solar panels increases its annual energy consumption by about 324 to 591 kilowatt-hours. Webber and Robert Fares analyzed the impact of home energy storage using electricity data from almost 100 Texas households that are part of a smart grid test bed managed by Pecan Street Inc., a renewable energy and smart technology company housed at UT Austin. If a homeowner is seeking to reduce his or her environmental footprint, adding storage would not make the household more green, but it shouldn’t be dismissed either, the researchers said. “Solar combined with storage is still a lot cleaner than having no solar at all,” Fares said. In short, the analysis showed that storing solar energy today offers fewer environmental benefits than just sending it straight to the grid, because the energy lost to storage inefficiencies is ultimately made up with fossil-fuel electricity from the grid. Charcandrick West Womens Jersey
Financial woes of power distribution cos run deep; it’s too early to evaluate Uday
India’s power sector has long been riddled with the poor financial health of the power distribution companies (Discoms) despite repeated bailouts from the Central government, the first of which was attempted in 2001. The Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) approved by the Union Cabinet in November 2015 aimed to permanently resolve the financial issues of these companies. While Uday does appear to be a robust attempt by the government to revive their fortunes by making state governments more responsible, it is still early days to evaluate the one-year-old scheme, which has shown mixed results till date. Woes of Discoms Discoms have long been starved of essential outlays which has not been the case for generation and transmission utilities. The focus of the power sector has been on adding to the generation capacity and meeting rising electricity demand. However, the distribution infrastructure at the consumer end has often been neglected. This has left Discoms ill-equipped to cater to the composite mix of consumers they are obligated to serve. Discoms have to deal with multiple challenges: Supplying electricity to a large number of connections with low individual loads, multiple tariff classes with cross-subsidies, power theft and planning for fluctuating. Revenue loss can be attributed to accumulation of regulatory assets, arrears in operational costs, arrears in payments to generation and transmission utilities, interest burdens, etc. State governments in India also often subsidise electricity tariffs for agricultural and domestic consumers. Delay in disbursement of state subsidies, promised to domestic and agricultural consumers, has added to the financial strain on Discoms. As a result, their debt has burgeoned despite attempted bailouts. As per the government’s 2015 estimates, the accumulated debt of all Discoms reached Rs 4.3 lakh crore. While operational and financial inefficiencies are recognised as the root cause, exact nature of the problem varies across different states and across different Discoms. Attempted reforms Uday aims at improving operational and financial efficiency of state Discoms. It does not promise any grants but voluntarily asks the states to take-over 75 percent of the debt of the respective Discoms. The scheme appears to build on previous financial restructuring schemes (financial restructuring scheme, 2012 and Distribution Management Responsibility Bill, 2013) and on aligning its targets with other ongoing programs in the power sector. Under Uday, states issue non-statutory liquid ratio (SLR) bonds and state development loan bonds, in the market or directly to the respective banks or financial institutions holding the Discom debt to the appropriate extent. The scheme requires a tripartite agreement between Discoms, the state government and the ministry of power (MoP). So far 21 states have signed MoUs. Jharkhand is the first state to sign under Uday and it cleared historic dues of the state Discom amounting to Rs 5,553 crore. Since then, Jharkhand’s state Discom has accumulated fresh dues of Rs 1,330 crore. On the other hand, the Haryana state Discom, Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), for the first time ever since its inception recorded a profit of Rs.78 crores, in the first half of financial year 2016-17. Both the Discoms signed for Uday within three months’ gap, Jharkhand in January 2016 and Haryana in March 2016. It would be short-sighted to attribute either of the state’s results to the efficacy of Uday scheme. The Uday scheme has to be seen from a long-term perspective. The power ministry, in its memorandum of Uday scheme, announced a plan for states to absorb future losses in a graded manner: 5 percent of the previous year’s losses in 2017-18, 10 percent in 2018-19, 25 percent in 2019-20, and 50 percent in 2020-21. This indicates that the scheme has allocated financial restructuring of Discoms, anticipating the timelines for improvement in Discoms performance. Further, to improve the operational efficiency of Discoms, Uday has identified parameters, based on which ranking of states is undertaken. These parameters call for better metering, consumer indexing, augmentation of networks, quarterly tariff revisions, etc. Participating states may get priority funding through concurrent schemes on power sector development. Are Discoms entirely to blame? Despite a history of inefficient operations, the distribution segment has struggled due to a lack of investments, high costs of power procurement, delay in payments from government and under-performing power plants. About 80 percent of the costs of supply of Discoms, in aggregate, is for bulk power purchases. Revenue realisation from sale of power barely touches 80 percent of the overall cost of supply. Discoms rely on their Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) – filings, submitted to the state regulators, for any cash surpluses, to invest in additional infrastructure. Given high costs of supply, regulators come under tremendous pressure to minimise increases in ARR, by denying mandated returns to Discoms. The generation and transmission utilities, on the other hand, get high regulated returns. The central public sector generation utilities enjoy heavy post-tax profits, while, in the same sector Discoms are bailed out by various schemes from the government.
Power ministry releases medium-term power procurement guidelines
The Ministry of Power has released the guidelines for procurement of electricity for medium term from power stations set up on finance, own and operate basis (FOO) through the e-bidding portal DEEP. Medium term power is purchased through a power procurement agreement for a period between one and five years. Earlier this month, the government issued standard bidding documents to be adopted by distribution licensees for procurement of electricity from power producers, traders, distribution companies through competitive bidding through DEEP e-Bidding portal based on offer of lowest tariff from power generating stations constructed on FOO basis. The ministry in the guidelines said any deviation from the model bidding documents shall be made by the distribution licensees only with the prior approval of the appropriate commission. It further said the guidelines will also apply to those procuring power from thermal projects set up on design, build, finance, own and operate (DBFOO) basis after new coal block auction policy came into being. “Any project specific modifications expressly permitted in the model bidding documents shall not be construed as deviations from the model bidding documents,” the guidelines said. The ministry said any agreements signed or actions taken prior to the date will not be affected by such repeal of the sail guidelines and shall continue to be governed by the pervious guidelines. Jamie Meder Jersey
REC inks pacts with Andhra Pradesh for Rs 60,000 crore funding
State-owned Rural Electrification Corporation Ltd has inked three pacts to extend financial assistance of around Rs 60,000 crore to Andhra Pradesh. “Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by REC for extending financial assistance to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore in the state of Andhra Pradesh,” Rural Electrification Corp informed BSE today. According to the statement, REC has signed three MoUs for extending financial assistance of around Rs 60,000 crore in the state for the next five years (till March 2022). The financial assistance comprises Rs 40,000 crore to Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corp, Rs 10,000 to Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh and Rs 10,000 crore to AP DISCOMSs. Apart from financial assistance, the power utilities have agreed on availing consultancy and management services from REC arms, REC Power Distribution Company and REC Transmission Projects Company, for various activities/projects for the next five years. Mike Komisarek USA Authentic Jersey