The West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission (WBERC) has approved a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the purchase of surplus power from a waste gas-based generating project.

The PPA was signed between the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) and Ankit Metal & Power Limited (AMPL).

The 16 MW project is located at Chhatna in the Bankura district of West Bengal. The PPA will be valid for 15 years, and the tariff for the entire period has been set at ₹1.19 (~$0.016)/kWh.

Background

The West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) had applied to WBERC on February 22, 2019, for the approval of the PPA signed with the developer.

Ankit Metal & Power intended to sell the surplus power to WBSEDCL after meeting its auxiliary consumption and captive use of electricity at the factory premises. The amount of surplus energy to be purchased by WBSEDCL was slated to be 33 million units (MUs), with a variation of 20%.

In its submission, the state DISCOM  added that the financial impact for the purchase of 33 MUs of power would be ₹39.27 million (~$549,015) annually, considering a tariff of ₹1.19 (~$0.016)/kWh. The procurement of power was also to help the DISCOM in fulfilling the renewable purchase obligation (RPO).

From the quarterly RPO status submitted by WBSEDCL, it was observed that at the end of the second quarter of the financial year 2019-20, it had achieved a solar RPO of 0.47% against the target of 0.50% and the total RPO stood at 4.26% against the target of 8%. Therefore, it showed a considerable gap in fulfilling both solar and total RPO targets.

While going through the application for the PPA, the Commission noted that the overall purchase price proposed from the waste gas-based captive power project was ₹1.19 (~$0.016)/kWh which was well within the capped tariff of ₹3.34 (~$0.046)/kWh specified in the state’s regulations.

Previously, West Bengal approved the PPA for a 12 MW waste gas-based power generation project in the state. The commission had received a request from WBSEDCL to approve the PPA it had entered with Rashmi Ispat Limited for the purchase of surplus power for 25 years.

To recover energy from waste and effluent generated from industries, India has set up 186 waste-to-energy projects for the generation of biogas, bioCNG power with a cumulative capacity of 317.03 MW so far. Out of the 186 projects, five projects are based on municipality solid waste, thus generating a total capacity of 66.5 MW of energy. Meanwhile, 181 projects are agricultural, urban and industrial waste-based waste-to-energy projects. Out of this, 94 projects are biogas and bio compressed natural gas (CNG) off-grid purposes.