Nagpur: A group of renewable energy experts have criticised the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) over the multi-year tariff (MYT) petition submitted before the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) last month. The experts claimed that MSEDCL’s proposals, if accepted by MERC, will majorly hit consumers generating solar power, and also general consumers in one way or another.
Speaking at a press conference organised by the All India Renewable Energy Association (AIREA) on Friday, the experts said, “The MSEDCL is trying to mislead the consumers to hide their own incapability to reduce losses. All the discoms, including Adani, Ambani, and Tata, submitted their MYT before MERC, and all have shown their tariffs would reduce over the period of five years. On the other hand, MSEDCL, which already charges higher tariffs than other discoms in the state as well as in neighbouring states, has proposed that their tariffs would increase,” said Girdhar Mantri, who is advisor at AIREA.
Another AIREA advisor, Sudhir Budhe, said solar and non-solar consumers will both get hit as per the proposed MYT petition and revised TOD pattern. “Currently, TOD (time of day metering) is applicable for all consumers whose consumption is more than 20KV, except for residential and agricultural connections. MSEDCL has now proposed to apply it to all consumers over 10KV, which would include industrial, commercial, and a few big residential consumers. Also, if a consumer installs solar panels, the most suitable time for power generation is 9am to 5pm. Currently, consumers are getting the benefit of solar power generated by them for 20 hours, which benefit would be reduced to just 8 hours as per the proposal,” said Budhe.
“Revised telescopic billing will also increase the bills of solar consumers. MSEDCL has given an example for this in their petition. Currently, if a consumer is using 520 units, of which 400 are generated from solar and remaining 120 he buys from MSEDCL, then they have to pay a bill for 120 units as per the initial slabs, which have lower rates. However, now MSEDCL has proposed that the 400 units generated from solar for free would be considered under the initial tariff slabs, while the 120 units bought from MSEDCL, on which the bill needs to be paid, would go under the higher slabs, which have higher rates,” said Budhe.
The AIREA officials also raised concerns about the Grid Support Charges, KVAH billing for LT consumers, and new plans for bulk consumption rebate. “Currently, fixed charges for HT consumers are 75%, which is proposed to increase to 85%. Similarly, fixed charges for LT consumers have been proposed to be increased to 60% from 40%. The majority of consumers are under the LT category, and a sudden hike of 50% in fixed charges will hit all consumers,” they said.