Power tariff hike short sighted, unsustainable: Greenpeace

A green NGO today termed Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission's (DERC) hike in electricity tariff as "short sighted and unsustainable" and asked the government to tap renewable energy sources to address the city's power crisis.
"The hike, though marginal will have an impact on the common people. DERC cannot take a decision on the basis of Accounting Rate of Return (ARR) of DISCOMs only; it also needs to consider the views of the consumers as they are the ones who eventually pay the price," Abhishek Pratap, Senior Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace India said.
He said financial statement of the DISCOMs for the last year clearly shows that they are making profits on the tariff set last year.

"Since then the tariffs have been increased twice on the pretext of rising fuel cost. The government is not looking at sustainable alternatives like solar and has been dependent on coal and coal power plants in other states for its energy needs," he said in a release here.
Noting that Delhi fared the worst in a recent Greenpeace report that assessed the renewable energy targets met by Indian states under the renewable purchase obligation (RPO) mechanism, the NGO said, "Despite a huge potential on solar, the government has done nothing to promote and include renewable in its electricity mix."
It said that the argument given by critics is that renewable is expensive.

"However, price of renewable is reducing as in the case of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Himachal, where electricity tariff will go down by 2020 because of high percentage of renewable in the electricity supply.
"In case of Delhi even if the Delhi government increases the share of renewable to 25 per cent the price will only increase by 14 to 22 paise in the next 8 years," the NGO noted.