Operational clarification on wind power banking process in Tamil Nadu

TANGEDCO is the only utility in the country offering an annual banking process of electricity. This was a big motivator and a winner for Tamil Nadu. It catapulted Tamil Nadu to the top renewable energy generator position in the country, so much so, that it generated more wind power than most of the countries in Europe!

Certainly TANGEDCO deserves all kudos for the great work they are doing in this respect. Over a period of time, they have evolved the process of banking and utilising wind energy to a great extent. One more step in the right direction was taken by TANGEDCO when they issued a clarity circular on banking a month back.

CE, NCES, set to rest many issues when he issued this circular dated 25/Jun/2015.

A number of circulars and a string of orders from TNERC did not put to rest the operating ambiguity within TANGEDCO. There were some EDCs offering banking at generation end, some at wheeling end; some said power banked has to be consumed by those to whom it was destined to. Others said, no, once a consumer goes out of the agreement, they cannot consume. In essence, there were quite some confusions.

Now, all these are put to rest.

1. Now, banking account will be maintained only at the generating end on a slot wise basis. No banking account will be maintained at the wheeling end. Any excess power at the wheeling end will be RETURNED back to the generating end in the same month.

2. Current month generation is consumed first and then banked energy is to be utilised. Every month on request of the generator, allocation will be done. This also covers banked energy. From now onwards, every month generator has to file an allocation sheet and the same will be allocated by TANGEDCO.

3. If a consumer goes out of the contract, the units will be returned back to the generating EDC and added to the banked energy there for use by other consumers. No power will be allocated to those people who are going out.

4. Generating end EDC will settle the invoice for banked energy at the end of the year.

This would put to rest many contentions. Though a few questions that remain unanswered are, suppose a consumer goes out, will the allocation of banked units during that period be to all the consumers including a new one or only to those consumers who were existing at that time. This operational problem arises in many generation EDCs during banking allocation.

Another clarification which is applicable to both banked and un-banked power is, in group captive should the allocation happen as per share ratio every month or will it be judged only at the end of the year? The rule is clear on end of the year. But then, the share ratio varies through the year. And which day's share ratio is taken for consideration is the biggest question? So far, the clarity that we had was, share ratio as on 31 Mar will be taken for consideration since that is when the year ends.

But a clarification on this from CE, NCES, would go a long way in streamlining operations.

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