Tata Power’s network roll pout plan for Greater Mumbai has hit the regulatory hurdle especially from the cost point of view. Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has sought suggestions and objections from stakeholders. Tata Power is expected to spend Rs 1,600 crore on laying network across the city. So far it has incurred Rs 400 crore in expenses.<\/p>\n
While granting the distribution licence from August 16, 2014 for a 25 year period, the state power regulator had asked Tata Power to submit its network roll out plan especially in view of latter’s move to increase its consumer base across Greater Mumbai. Tata Power with a consumer base of 600,000 has to currently use the existing network of its competitor Reliance Infrastructure for power supply.<\/p>\n
The matter went into the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL). In its judgement, APTEL ruled that across nation duplication of network means increase in the cost. Instead, APTEL stressed the need to optimise or economise the existing network. It further added that network roll out may be allowed with certain caps.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, MERC formed a four member committee seeking its recommendations on way forward. The committee in its report said in case old building is demolished and new one is constructed Tata Power can lay network and supply power. However, if the load has to be increased in the existing building in that case Reliance Infrastructure, which is the supplier, can strengthen the network and not the Tata Power.<\/p>\n
Tata Power spokesperson told Business Standard,” In line with its network development plan, Tata Power plans to further strengthen the backbone infrastructure of the city to cater to its growing consumer base. It has been seen that any investment in roll-out without customer demand can remain unutilized which is not in the interest of the consumers. Network should be developed based on ground realities of consumer demand which will make it efficient and economic.”<\/p>\n
The Committee report on network expansion has interpreted many definitions which are contrary to APTEL’s judgement and Electricity Act.<\/p>\n
“The Committee has attempted to remove choice of consumers and to reduce distribution companies to investors by recommending institutional mechanism to micro manage the distribution companies. It is important that customer choice should not be compromised and distribution companies should be free to manage the consumer load in efficient & economic manner for the benefit of the consumers,” spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Further, Balawant Joshi, managing director, policy and regulatory consulting, Idam Infrastructure Advisory said MERC need to ensure that no licensee in the area gets undue benefit due to its existing asset position. If a licensee is allowed to leverage its dominant position, competition would never get created and consumers would be subjected to higher tariffs.<\/p>\n
”It is important that consumer choice should be considered as something of paramount importance especially to maintain competitive balance between the licensees as an instrument to protect the interests of consumers,” he opined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tata Power’s network roll pout plan for Greater Mumbai has hit the regulatory hurdle especially from the cost point of view. Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has sought suggestions and objections from stakeholders. Tata Power is expected to spend Rs 1,600 crore on laying network across the city. So far it has incurred Rs 400 crore in expenses. While granting the distribution licence from August 16, 2014 for a 25 year period, the state power regulator had asked Tata Power to submit its network roll out plan especially in view of latter’s move to increase its consumer base across Greater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}