Soon, industrial units can buy 100% renewable power

Industrial units and businesses across the country will soon be able to meet their entire power requirement via renewable energy (RE) sources, a move that could boost their goodwill image and help reduce their carbon footprint.

Announcing a ‘green tariff mechanism’ towards this end on Tuesday, Union power minister RK Singh said the necessary guidelines would be issued shortly. Currently, in most parts of the country, discoms supply power to industries from a common pool created out of purchases that include thermal and hydel power too, besides RE.

“The green tariff will the weighted average of the cost of procurement of green energy, which should be slightly lower than the overall energy prices,” Singh said.

However, experts pointed out that green tariffs could vary from state to state, and for discoms which had contracted substantial quantum of renewable energy in the earlier years — when solar and wind power tariffs were significantly higher than the current rates — the average RE power purchase cost could even be higher than purchase cost of conventional sources of energy.

Similar provisions for green tariffs are already in place in Karnataka since FY12. Recently, Maharashtra became the latest state to allow green tariffs for consumers willing to meet their power requirement through RE sources. The Maharashtra power regulator, through its March order, allowed discoms in the state to levy `0.66/unit green tariff over and above their usual power tariffs from interested consumers.

Corporate India is increasingly trying to reduce their carbon footprint and many corporate consumers already receive RE power through the ‘open access’ mechanism.