The Madhya Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (MPERC) has published the first amendment of its 2018 regulations for forecasting, scheduling, and deviation settlement mechanism for wind and solar projects.

The regulations will come into effect from the date of publication of the notification in the Madhya Pradesh official gazette.

The regulations mandate that if wind and solar generators fail to appoint a common qualified coordinating agencies (QCAs) within two months from the date of issue of notice by the state load despatch center (SLDC), then the concerned licensee will be asked to disconnect the defaulting generators. Previously, the regulations stated that the wind and solar generators must appoint a common QCA within one month.

The SLDCs are mandated to prepare charges for deviations monthly based on the data recorded by wind and solar pooling stations so far. Within three months of the notification of this amendment, the SLDCs will have to calculate deviation charges every week.

Moreover, the amended regulation doesn’t mention anything about the waiver of the past deviation settlement mechanism.

The QCAs have to submit payment security in the form of a bank guarantee for the settlement of deviation charges. The payment security for solar is ₹10,000 ($141)/MW, and for wind, it is ₹40,000 ($565)/MW.

The regulations also mention that the scheduling period may be revised to 288 time-blocks, each of 5-minutes. The interface metering energy accounting and deviation settlement need to be capable to undertake transactions with 5-minutes time-blocks, underlines the commission. At present, the scheduling period is 96-time blocks, each of 15-minute duration.

According to the commission, these regulations will apply to sellers who are involved in short-term or medium-term open access, long-term open access in intra-state transmission, or distribution of electricity, including intra-state wheeling of power. The regulations will apply to all wind power generators having an installed capacity of 10 MW and above and solar power generators having an installed capacity of 5 MW and above (including those connected through pooling stations and selling power within the state).

Earlier this year, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) finalized the fifth amendment to its deviation settlement mechanism 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.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has exempted renewable energy QCAs for meter reading, data collection, and communication from paying scheduling and forecasting charges. However, the initial corpus that QCAs must deposit remains unchanged.

In the recently held conference ‘Energizing South’ organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Mercom reported that the leaders of the sector spoke on the importance of grid discipline, forecasting, and scheduling in the integration of renewable energy into the grid.

A senior deputy general manager at the southern regional load dispatch center, Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), Sharmeena Verghese, said that the government is contemplating migration from 1 minute-time-block to 5-minute time-block for the deviation settlement mechanism.

Image credit: Sunsights Solar

Anjana is a news editor at Mercom India. Before joining Mercom, she held roles of senior editor, district correspondent, and sub-editor for The Times of India, Biospectrum and The Sunday Guardian. Before that, she worked at the Deccan Herald and the Asianlite as chief sub-editor and news editor. She has also contributed to The Quint, Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express, Reader’s Digest (UK edition), IndiaSe (Singapore-based magazine) and Asiaville. Anjana holds a Master’s degree in Geography from North Bengal University, and a diploma in mass communication and journalism from Guru Ghasidas University, Bhopal.