DERC seeks de-allocation of Delhi’s share of power from Dadri-I plant

New Delhi, July 12 (IANS) The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has written to the Power Ministry seeking de-allocation of the entire share of power for Delhi from the Dadri-I plant and allocating it to other states in a bid to lower the burden of fixed cost without any consumption in the national capital.BSES discoms had stopped scheduling power from Dadri-I plant of the NTPC in November 2020, upon completion of the plant 25 years from its commercial date of operation and had sought exit from the plant. The NTPC had denied exit to BSES discoms, following which they approached the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). The CERC recently said that discoms are eligible to terminate power purchase agreements (PPA) after 25 years of operations, thereby allowing BSES Yamuna Power Ltd to exit the PPA with NTPC’s Dadri-I power generating station. According to industry sources, despite the expiry of the agreements with the NTPC and not scheduling the expensive power costing above Rs 6 per unit from Dadri-I, BSES discoms continue to pay around Rs 35 crore per month as fixed charges to NTPC due to NTPC’s threat of regulations of power supply. In its second letter to the Power Ministry, the DERC said: “You are once again requested to permanently reallocate on urgent basis entire Delhi’s share of Dadri-I Generating Station of NTPC Ltd to other needy states with effect from 1st December, 2020 to avoid the burden of fixed cost without any power scheduled to end consumers of Delhi.” On March 22, the Ministry of Power had issued guidelines enabling discoms to either continue or exit from PPAs after completion of the term of PPA beyond 25 years, which the CERC order also mentions. –IANS rrb/sn/vd