The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has finalized the fifth amendment to its deviation settlement mechanism regulations. These regulations will come into force with effect from June 03, 2019.

The commission has accepted all the proposals put forward in the draft fifth amendment regulations. In April 2019, the CERC had issued its fifth draft amendment to the deviation settlement regulations which included two new clauses: daily base deviation settlement mechanism and time block DSM. Daily base deviation settlement mechanism means the sum of charges for deviations for all time blocks in a day payable or receivable excluding the additional charges. Time block DSM indicates the charge for deviation for the specific time block in a day payable or receivable excluding the additional charges.

Following the announcement of the fourth amendment to the deviation settlement in November 2018, the CERC received complaints from several stakeholders regarding the technical and operational constraints in implementing some of the provisions. Later, the commission came up with the fifth amendment regulations.

The commission has provided relief to generators through exemption from additional charges. According to the CERC, renewable energy generators which are regional entities, run of river projects without pondage, any infirm injection of power by a generating station prior to the commercial operation date of a unit during testing and commissioning activities will not be liable to additional charge for any failure to adhere to the sign change requirement. Also, any drawl of power by a generating station for the start-up activities of a unit, any inter-regional deviations, forced outage of a generating station in case of collective transactions on power exchanges will not be liable to an additional charge for any failure to adhere to the sign change requirement.

Before this, in November 2018, the CERC had issued the fourth amendment to the deviation settlement regulations which came into effect on January 1, 2019.