In a major relief to foreign-funded solar projects worth Rs 4,000 crore in Andhra Pradesh, the Appellate Tribunal For Electricity (Aptel) has directed the state-owned power distribution companies (discoms) to pay Rs 2.72/unit tariff—the rate discovered in reverse auctions—to the plant developers.
Reversing the Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Commission’s October 2019 order, Aptel said that the state power regulator “ought not to have passed conditional order,” which allowed the state to buy electricity from these solar projects only if tariffs were reduced to Rs 2.44/unit. Andhra Pradesh’s decision to revise tariffs of renewable energy projects had created a stir in the industry and hit the national mission to have 175 giga-watt (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2022.
