RERC solar energy shock to domestic consumers

The Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission has dealt a big financial blow to consumers selling renewable electricity to power discoms. Discoms will now pay only Rs 2 per unit instead of Rs 3.14 per unit for the extra electricity sold to consumers producing renewable energy, including solar, by exporting it to the grid. Consumers will now suffer a loss of Re 1 14 paise per unit on selling the surplus electricity after domestic use.
There are 1000 units in 1 MW and 5000 units in 5 MW. For example, if a consumer uses 82 percent i.e. 4100 units of electricity himself. Only 18 percent of the extra ie 900 MW power is sold by giving it to the discoms in the grid. So earlier he used to get Rs 2826 per unit of Rs 3.14. Now he will get only Rs 1800. There will be a loss of Rs 1026. But not every consumer is able to use 82 percent of the electricity. In such a situation, the loss will be more if the power consumption is less and the export is more.
Rajasthan Discom Chairman Bhaskar A Sawant said that the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission has fixed the feed-in tariff of net metering consumers. In which the extra produced electricity put into the grid of the discom will be paid at the rate of Rs 2 per unit. Under RERC Grid Interactive Distributed Renewable Energy Generating System Regulation-2021, if the quantity of electricity exported by domestic category consumers exceeds the quantity imported during the billing period, the additional quantity of electricity will be purchased on the weighted average tariff. . This tariff adopts the commission for solar projects above 5 MW after ascertaining it through competitive bidding in the previous financial year.
On March 5, 2019, the commission fixed the rate of payment for extra-exported electricity at Rs 3.14 per unit for domestic category consumers only under the Net Metering Regulations, 2019. But in the last financial year 2021-22, the tariff has come only at Rs 2 per unit. Therefore, from September 15, 2021, payment will be made at the same rate. At present, there are 1.47 crore electricity consumers in Rajasthan. Of these, 28000 consumers are connected to the discom system under net metering. Out of these, 20 thousand domestic category consumers have taken the facility of net metering. Such domestic consumers use 82 percent of the electricity generated by themselves.
Discom sources tell- On one hand the power crisis continues in the state. Even during the monsoon, the power demand is less than the peak demand of 2000 to 2500 MW. The power crisis may worsen after the monsoon period. There are already restrictions on the shortage of coal and buying expensive foreign coal. Rajasthan is not even getting approval for coal production from the extension of Chhattisgarh mines. Even in such a situation, instead of promoting solar and green energy consumers and motivating them by increasing the rate, the rate has been reduced. Due to this the consumer can get demotivated. The bidding rate has been stated as Rs. But that could be a very limited amount of electricity. It cannot be said to be applicable to all domestic solar and renewable consumers. Rajasthan Urja Vikas Nigam itself is not getting the full power required from the exchange at Rs 12 per unit. Then reducing the rate of consumers giving it to discoms by making solar energy cannot be said to be right.