The Himachal Pradesh Electricity Commission (HPERC) has released the draft framework for resource adequacy to enable electricity capacity additions to meet the projected demand through a judicious mix of energy contracts at the least cost.

The Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (Framework for Resource Adequacy) Regulations, 2025 apply to the generating companies, distribution licensees, the state load dispatch center, the state transmission utilities, and other grid-connected entities and stakeholders in the state.

The Commission aims to plan generation and transmission through these regulations to meet the projected demand reliably.

Demand Assessment and Forecasting

For long- and medium-term demand forecasts, the distribution licensees must prepare a demand assessment and forecast covering hourly or sub-hourly.

The distribution licensee will also be responsible for considering the category-wise consumption and assessed consumption data of agricultural and domestic consumers.

The summation of the energy forecast (in MWh) for multiple consumer categories after adjusting captive, prosumer, and open access load forecast will be the energy forecast for the distribution licensee at the consumer level.

The peak demand will be determined by considering the average load factor, load diversity factor, seasonal variation factors for the last three years, and the energy forecasts.

For short-term demand forecasts, the distribution licensee must develop a methodology for hourly and sub-hourly demand forecasts and maintain a historical database.

A load research analysis will be conducted to ascertain the hourly load profile. This study will also assess the consumer categories’ contribution to peak demand. The influence of demand response, load shift measures, and time of use will be factored into the analysis.

For the aggregation of demand forecast, the distribution licensee will prepare hourly or sub-hourly short, medium, and long-term demand forecasts on a rolling basis and submit them to the state load dispatch centre (SLDC) by April 30 each year.

General Resource Planning

The distribution licensee must plan and assess the required generation resources considering their existing and upcoming availability.

It will also consider the allocation of free power of government where a clear commitment for a given period exists. Additionally, the licensee will consider the capacity credit and incremental capacity requirements to meet forecasted demands, including the planning reserve margin.

They will also map all its existing, upcoming, and retiring resources to develop the existing resource map in MW for the long and medium-term power procurement plan.

The distribution licensee will also compute capacity credit for their contracted generation resources by applying the net load-based approach.

For inter or intra-state renewable energy contracted generation, the capacity credit factor’s contribution to the renewable energy or generation resource, where such resource is connected to the grid as contracted by the distribution licensee, will be considered.

The capacity credit factors for hydro generation resources will be computed based on water availability for run-of-the-river and dam-based/storage-based hydropower projects.

The distribution licensee will also determine the planning reserve margins (PRMs) for resource adequacy requirements and generation capacity planning.

PRM is a percentage of the capacity over and above the state’s coincident share in the national peak demand that must be considered for generation resource planning. The state-level resource adequacy planning by the distribution licensee/SLDC will factor in PRM while developing the state-level integrated resource plan.

The distribution licensee will determine the capacity requirement to meet demand and PRM. The licensee will consider the available capacity adjusted for capacity crediting for existing and planned contracted generation resources.

Long-term national resource adequacy plan (LT-NRAP) and short-term national resource adequacy plan (ST-NRAP) reports will guide the distribution licensee in undertaking the resource adequacy exercises.

The Central Electricity Authority will publish the LT-NRAP, and the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) will publish the ST-NRAP.

Renewable Energy Integration

The distribution licensee must ensure an optimal procurement generation resource mix in its power procurement strategy. The licensee must also facilitate smooth renewable energy integration in its power procurement resource options portfolio while meeting reliability standards and renewable purchase obligations.

The distribution licensee will employ optimization techniques and ‘least-cost’ modeling to identify the optimal generation procurement resource mix to avoid stranded capacity.

The distribution licensee will contract additional resources source-wise based on the long-term demand and resource adequacy plan to meet its peak demand.

The power procurement from wind, solar, wind-solar hybrid, and round-the-clock generations will be carried out per the tariff-based competitive bidding process guidelines notified by the Ministry of Power.

The distribution licensee will also identify the long, medium, and short-term generation resource mix and procurement strategy before seeking the Commission’s approval.

Through the annual rolling plan, the distribution licensee will also ensure incremental capacity addition through the long, medium, or short-term upon factoring in the distribution licensees’ existing and planned procurement initiatives.

The distribution licensee must submit information about the contracted capacity to SLDC and the state transmission unit (STU) for compliance verification.

The distribution licensee, the STU, and the SLDC must get the Commission’s approval for the procurement and annual rolling plans.

The licensee can enter an additional power procurement agreement during an unanticipated electricity demand increase, a shortfall or failure in electricity supply, or when power sourcing from existing tied-up sources becomes costlier than other available alternative sources.

The distribution licensee may enter a short-term arrangement or agreement for power procurement when faced with emergency conditions threatening grid stability.

The licensee will maintain and share all demand assessment and forecasting data. They will also maintain at least the past ten years of statistics in their database about consumption profiles for each class of consumers. These classes include domestic, commercial, industry, and public lighting.

In December last year, HPERC allowed Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board to procure 550 MW of inter-state transmission system-connected solar power from the Solar Energy Corporation of India for 25 years.

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