Report of Indian Institute of Public Administration ... - Ministry of Power

State Reports (Vol.-III)
Study on `Impact of Restructuring of SEBs’
promised that the share of Rajasthan in the unallocated power of central generating
stations will not fall below 25 per cent but the average of Rajasthan is presently 20.29
per cent only.
Policy on Captive Power Generation Before and After the Reforms
Captive generation is not being welcomed by the DISCOMs because they perceive it
as a threat to their revenue. Since the Electricity Act has very much liberalised the
definition of captive generation, directly the DISCOMs can do precious little to
check the growth of captive plants but indirectly they try to create hurdles. They
are not able to fully meet the power requirement of the industries and subjecting them
to frequent power cuts and yet they discourage captive power generation by the
private companies.
A captive power plant (CPP) may have adequate generation capacity for its industrial
unit but for reasons of added safety, it would still like to be connected with the
DISCOM system so that it can draw power in case of shutdown, annual maintenance,
etc. Such a consumer has to have full contract demand so that he can operate his plant
and machinery in case of emergency. The age old minimum charges were conceived
for consumers who were supposed to draw power on regular basis and if they did
not draw power, the DISCOMs rightly charged minimum charges for the system
remaining idle. However, the present scenario is totally different where a
mechanical application of the old rules and procedure may lead to gross
injustice. Formerly every consumer would take DISCOM connection for regular
consumption of power but the captive plants and open access consumers have no
intention to use the power of DISCOMs on a regular basis. Levying the same
minimum charges from an occasional consumer (as for a regular consumer) is
rather too harsh, which deters the growth of captive plants and Open Access
consumers. A case has been noticed in Rajasthan where a consumer having a
captive plant of more than 150 MW has to shut down his plant for some duration
every month so as to consume power from the DISCOM system equal to the
minimum charges payable by him. This creates double loss of power. Firstly, the
generation of 150 MW is lost because the captive plant is compelled to shut down.
Secondly, the CPP connected industrial unit draws 150 MW from the DISCOM
system to utilise its minimum charges. Had such a restriction not been in place, this
150 MW could be supplied by the DISCOM to other needy industrial consumers. In
the ultimate analysis, even if minimum charges are not levied from captive plants and
6.42