The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has expanded the scope of operation of the Reserve Regulation Ancillary Services (RRAS) Regulations, 2015, to facilitate the availability of adequate power reserves with the system operator to manage the peak demand.

The aim of the RRAS Regulations 2015 is to restore the frequency at the desired level and to reduce congestion in the transmission network.

The ancillary services ensure generation to meet the excess demand during peak hours.

Expanding the scope of RRAS Regulations, the Central Commission has included state-generating stations whose tariffs have been determined or adopted by the State Commission and are willing to participate in RRAS.

Also, included under the purview of RRAS Regulations are generating stations that have been mandated by the central government to participate in RRAS and have their tariffs discovered through a competitive bidding process.

This is in addition to the regional entities whose tariffs have been determined and adopted by the Central Commission.

Also, the nodal agency’s merit order stack must now encompass state-generating stations whose tariffs have been determined or adopted by the State Commission and generating stations mandated by the central government to participate in RRAS, as well as regional generating stations whose tariffs have been determined and adopted by the Commission.

Under the existing RRAS Regulations 2015, only generating stations that are regional entities with their tariff determined or adopted by the Central Commission are eligible to offer RRAS.

Grid-India reported that this made it difficult to use other projects whose tariffs had yet to be determined or adopted by the Commission for RRAS.

After examining the power supply status across the nation, the Commission noted that on April 18, 2023, the highest level of demand reached 215.9 GW. This is anticipated to escalate even more due to rising temperatures in the coming months.

Grid-India informed the Commission of the steps taken by the system operator to guarantee the dependable operation of the grid.

Furthermore, to ensure that reserves are sufficient, Grid-India requested the Commission to expand the scope of RRAS Regulations 2015 to include resources other than the generating stations regulated by the Central Commission.

Recently, CERC  issued regulations to limit frequency fluctuations within the operating band in the interest of grid security. The regulator has set the normal rate of charges for deviation for a given time block.

Earlier, CERC had issued new guidelines to supplement the Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) Regulations 2022 to maintain grid security. The Commission added a new category of wind-solar generators and introduced charges for DSM. Further, it also hiked monetary incentives for both generators and procurers to maintain the grid frequency between the safe range of 49.95-50.05 Hz.

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