Petition No. 14/MP/2011 and IA No 21/2011. Case: Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd. Vs Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd.. Central Electricity Regulatory Commission
| Case Number | Petition No. 14/MP/2011 and IA No 21/2011 |
| Counsel | For Appellant: Shri Aditya Madan, Shri V.K. Gupta, Shri S.K. Jain and Shri Dinesh Khandelwal and For Respondents: Shri Venkatesh, Advocate, GFL, Shri Ambica Garg, Advocate, GFL and Ms. Joyoti Prasad, NRLDC |
| Judges | S. Jayaraman, Member, V.S. Verma, Member and M. Deena Dayalan, Member |
| Issue | Electricity Law |
| Judgement Date | May 09, 2013 |
| Court | Central Electricity Regulatory Commission |
Order:
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The petitioner is the State Transmission Utility in the State of Rajasthan and has been authorized to operate the State Load Despatch Centre. The respondent owns a wind farm with an installed capacity of 12 MW at Jaisalmer and the power generated by the said generating station is injected at 132 kV GSS Jaisalmer through 33 kV Sadia II feeder. The petitioner has submitted that the respondent has been seeking No Objections Certificate for short term transaction on monthly basis for which daily schedule is being processed by National Load Despatch Centre/Northern regional Load Despatch Centre. The petitioner has submitted that though it had raised certain objections in granting no objection certificate for grant of open access to the petitioner, but in accordance with the order of this Commission dated 27.8.2008 in Petition No. 60/2008, the petitioner has been issuing No Objection Certificate to the petitioner. Based on the energy injection by the petitioner for the period 1.4.2009 to 31.3.2010, the petitioner has alleged that the respondent has been resorting to 'gaming' by selling power more than its generation capacity in kWh and making undue commercial gain through unscheduled interchange charges. The petitioner has explained that during the period, the respondent is selling power to the tune of two to three times the actual generation and creating gross under-injection as a result of which the petitioner is forced to overdraw from the grid which amounts to indiscipline. The petitioner has further explained that as per the procedure followed by NRLDC, the electricity as per the schedule of the respondent is reduced from the drawal schedule of the State and the under-injection by the respondent is reflected as the overdrawal by the State. The under-injection caused by the respondent is charged from the respondent at the UI rate whereas the distribution companies of the State are required to purchase power at higher cost to avoid overdrawal. The petitioner has submitted the following data in support of its contention:
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The petitioner has further submitted that the respondent has been violating the limit of under-injection on time block basis as well as on daily aggregate basis as specified in Regulation 7(2) of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Unscheduled Inter-change Charges and related matters) Regulations, 2009 (hereinafter "UI Regulations") which provides that under-injection by a seller shall not exceed 12% of the scheduled injection when the frequency is below 49.5 Hz and 3% on daily aggregate basis for all time blocks when the frequency is below 49.5 Hz (prior to 3.5.2010). The petitioner has also placed on record the details of alleged violations by the respondent at Annexure V to the petition.
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The petitioner has submitted that the issue of gaming by the respondent was brought to the notice of the Appellate Tribunal during the hearing in Appeal No 66/2009. The Appellate Tribunal vide order dated 3.8.2010 advised the petitioner to bring the instances of gaming by the respondent to the notice of this Commission for necessary action. The present petition has been filed accordingly with the following prayers:
(a) To penalize the respondent for violation of CERC (UI charges and related matters) regulations 2009 and resorting to deliberate gamming.
(b) Pass appropriate order allowing the petitioner to refuse the open access for inter-State open access to the respondent whenever there is variation of more than 30% from the schedule.
(c) To limit the total energy sale by the respondent as per the capacity utilization factor (CUF) for wind farms.
(d) Pass such other and future orders as the Hon'ble Commission may deem appropriate in the facts and circumstances of the case.
Report of NRLDC
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The petition was listed for hearing on admission on 19.5.2011 and was admitted by order dated 8.6.2011. While admitting the petition, this Commission directed NRLDC to investigate, in consultation with National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC), the petitioner's allegations and submit its report. NRLDC submitted its report dated 30.6.2011, covering the period from 1.4.2009 to 31.3.2010. When the petition was again heard on 21.7.2011, this Commission noticed that the report was incomplete as it did not cover the entire period given in the petition, that is, 1.4.2009 to 31.7.2010. It was also noted that the extent of losses suffered by the petitioner for the alleged acts of the respondent through over-drawl from the grid and the frequency at the time of over-drawl were also not reported. Accordingly, this Commission directed NRLDC to submit a fresh report covering the above aspects also. In compliance with the direction, NRLDC submitted a comprehensive report dated 8.8.2011 covering the period 1.4.2009 to 31.7.2010. Later on, NRLDC filed its report dated 14.9.2011 containing the details of losses suffered by the petitioner on account of under-injection vis-à-vis scheduled injection.
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NRLDC has stated that it wrote letters to the petitioner as also the respondent to submit certain details to facilitate investigation as directed by this Commission. The details were furnished by the petitioner except the information relating to the scheduled injection at IEX. The details of transactions and Market Clearing Price for the period 1.4.2009 to 31.7.2010 were obtained by NRLDC directly from IEX. The respondent initially did not respond to the requests made by NRLDC. Subsequently, the respondent submitted the total injection schedule, actual injection and UI for the period 1.4.2009 to 31.5.2010. Therefore, NRLDC finalized the report dated 8.8.2011 based on the information received from the petitioner, respondent and IEX and submitted the report on 9.8.2011.
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NRLDC has submitted the details of the injection schedule, actual generation and deviation from injection schedule in the report as under:-
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Further, NLDC in its report has submitted the details of its UI transactions in the IEX and bilateral transactions carried out by the respondent as under:
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Based on the above data, the findings of NRLDC in the final report dated 8.8.2011 are as under:
(a) The respondent generated 39981 MWh. Considering the auxiliary consumption as Nil, the capacity utilization factor of the wind firm of the respondent was 29%. Considering the generation of 39981 MWh as against the scheduled injection of 84328 MWh for the period April 2009 to July 2010, the respondent has generated in the range of 16% to 292% of the schedule which works out to average of 47% of the scheduled generation.
(b) The injection schedule of the respondent varied from 14% to 92% of the wind farm capacity with annual average injection schedule being equal to 60% of the wind farm capacity. But the actual injection was 10% to 81% of the wind farm capacity, with annual average actual injection being equivalent to 29%.
(c) Consideration of the total injection schedule (bilateral injection schedule + injection schedule with IEX) and the actual injection during April 2009 to July 2010 revealed that at times the respondent was unable to generate to meet its bilateral commitments. However, the respondent was found to sell power at the IEX.
(d) The total UI volume of the respondent for under-injection from April 2009 to July 2010 was 51289 MWh against which the volume presumed to have been sold at IEX and through bilateral transactions was 20286 MWh and 31584 MWh respectively. While doing the UI volume bifurcation between IEX and bilateral, IEX quantum has been considered first followed by bilateral quantum for the balance UI.
(e) The rates for sale of power at IEX were higher than the average UI rates while the rates for sale through bilateral transactions were sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the average UI rates.
(f) The total amount paid by the respondent to the UI account during the period April 2009 to July 2010 was ` 2520 lakh whereas the amount received by the respondent from IEX was ` 1673 lakh and from bilateral transactions was ` 1895 lakh. The net gain by the respondent in the process of declaring excessive injection schedule and under-injection was about ` 1048 lakh.
(g) The number of time blocks in which the petitioner exceeded over-drawl limit specified under Regulation 7 of the UI Charges Regulations varied from NIL to 16 in a month. The total number of such time blocks during the period under investigation was 89.
(h) The respondent might have gained Rs. 1048 lakh extra by selling power through IEX as well as bilateral on one hand and carrying out under-injections to the grid on the other hand. NLDC has observed that had the respondent done some periodical checks in between and moderated its forecasting of scheduled energy, such large deviations could have been avoided.
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During the hearing of the petition on 11.8.2011, we had directed NRLDC to calculate the losses suffered by the petitioner due to under-injection by the respondent. We had also directed the petitioner to file with NRLDC the data regarding the rate at which power was purchased by the distribution companies/power procurement agency of the State of Rajasthan to meet out the under-injection by the respondent. Based on the data supplied by the petitioner, NRLDC has calculated the month-wise summary of the UI implication for Rajasthan due to under injection by respondent as under:
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Based on the above data, NRLDC has drawn the following inferences:
(a) In the months of November 2009 and December 2009, losses suffered by Rajasthan due to under injections by GFL are maximum i.e. approximately Rs. 128 lakhs each.
(b) In the months of June 2009, April 2010 and May 2010, Rajasthan has gained...
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