OERC ropes in WISE to formulate renewable energy policy

The Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has roped in Pune based World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE) to provide consultancy service on the development of renewable energy policy guidelines for Orissa.

It will also make its expertise available on the determination of tariff for renewable energy sources including co-generation.

The Commission invited tenders for this purpose in December 2008 and WISE was selected for being the low cost bidder for the work, sources said.

The institute will study the feasibility and indicate the generation cost of power from new and renewable sources. Besides, it is expected to study data pertaining to wind flow, solar light, bio-mass and equipments needed for exploitation of such sources.

Both data collection and field visit are proposed to be taken up by the organisation as part of the project consultancy. OERC will scrutinise the proposal after the consultant submits its report, which is likely to take about 3-4 months.

WISE has already made a preliminary presentation before the Commission on how it plans to proceed on the matter. It has also taken up a field visit to Damanjodi for assessment of wind power potential there, sources added.

As a major boost to the development of new and renewable energy sources in the state, OERC in its order on 20 August 2005, stated that the procurement of power from non-conventional and renewable energy sources such as small hydro, wind, bio-mass and co-generation of electricity from waste heat will be three percent of the power purchased by the distribution companies in 2007-08. This would be progressively increased at the rate of 0.5 percent every year to reach a level of 5 percent by 2011-12. Further, to encourage generation from renewable energy sources, the Commission has accepted the negotiated rates as proposed by Gridco for procurement of power from companies like Nilachal Ispat Nigam (NINL), Arati Steel, Tata Sponge, Samal Small Hydro and Minakshi Small Hydro during 2008-09. NINL, Arati Steel and Tata Sponge use waste heat to generate power, which is considered to be renewable energy source.

Though the state government allocates projects for production of renewable energy on the basis of the pre-qualifications judged by the state level technical committee (STC), it gets delayed due to a host of procedural difficulties. Keeping that in view, the Commission has been urging the state government to expedite the process.

Solitaire Energies Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of Moser Baer Clean Energy Ltd and Sahara Power are in the process of signing the power purchase agreement (PPA) with the state owned Gridco. Once the PPA is signed, they will apply to OERC for the determination of tariff for solar power. Sahara Power (Khurda) and Solitaire Energies (Jharsuguda) have received initial sanction to produce 5 Mw each.