The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has joined some other Indian states to notify forecasting, scheduling and deviation settlement regulations for solar and wind power generation. With these new regulations in force, solar and wind power generators will become 'more accountable through enhanced forecasting requirements and penalizing them for deviation'.
This measure is expected to also help facilitate large scale integration of solar and wind generating stations, while maintaining grid stability and security. Solar and wind power generators need to comply with the regulations on an individual basis or join others on a 'virtual pool'.
All solar and wind power generators connected to the grid will have to carry out forecasting. They need to submit a day-ahead and week-ahead schedule for each generating station or each pooling station.
The Andhra Pradesh notification has come into force on August 21, 2017. The forecasting, scheduling and deviation settlement will come into effect for all plant commissioned after January 1, 2018, and levy and collection of deviation charges will commence from July 1, 2018.
The notification can be viewed on the website of the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC).
Previously, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand have introduced these regulations, according to clean energy consultancy Bridge to India. The states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Manipur have announced draft regulations, it says.
All these states put together account for around 70% of operational and under development solar capacity.
A deviation settlement mechanism has been in place since 2014 when it was first introduced by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). Since then, it has undergone three amendments. The notifications introduced by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh apply to all solar and wind power generators connected to the grid, unlike the CERC regulation followed by most states, that applies only to more than 5 MW capacity solar power projects and to wind farms greater than 10 MW.
"The regulations may be seen as a new operational and financial burden for the sector but are an acknowledgement of its growing importance. Developers would be happy to bear this compliance cost than face greater risk of curtailment. We believe that these regulations are highly desirable as better forecasting and scheduling will enable integration of growing renewable capacity and pave way for future growth," opined Bridge to India.
Ensuring compliance with these measures will require investment in new systems, IT infrastructure upgrades and potential cost of penalties, it suggests.