India allows bulk consumers to establish transmission lines sans license

The ministry said the new rules will further cut the losses of distribution firms.

The Indian government has enabled consumers meeting the quantum of load requirements and energy storage systems (ESS) to establish, operate and maintain their dedicated transmission lines without licence in a bid to improve the ease of doing business by industries such as green hydrogen manufacturers.

In a statement, the Ministry of Power said the consumers that will be eligible to do so are a generating company a person with a captive generating plant or an ESS or a consumer with a load not less than 25 megawatts (MW) in case of Inter-State Transmission System, and 10 MW if intra-state.

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“By allowing such [a] facility, a new category of Bulk Consumers would emerge in the country, benefiting from more affordable electricity and enhanced grid reliability. This facility was already available to generating companies and captive generating stations,” the ministry said.

The Ministry added that the new regulation rationalises open access charges to ensure that they should be reasonable and uniform” across the country.

Under the regulation, a person who has never been a consumer of a distribution licensee will not pay an additional surcharge.

The government also stated that tariffs should be “cost reflective” and there is no gap between the approved annual revenue requirement and estimated annual revenue from the approved tariff, except only under natural calamity conditions.

If a gap existed, it should not be over 3% of the approved annual revenue requirement.