FINER to promote 'open access' of power

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, September 4: The Federation of Industry and Commerce of North Eastern Region (FINER) organized a semir on power procurement through open access today in the city with coordition of Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) to aware and promote competition and enhance quality and reliability of service to customers.

Addressing the press today, Director-BD of IEX Rajesh K. Mediratta said, “In the whole Northeast region, 3 million power per day and 1 million power per day in Assam procures from the power distribution companies and so there is a huge scope for all States to follow the approach and bring down their cost of power procurement which is almost 80 per cent of their total costs. The distribution utility should include price of power discovered on the power exchanges in its merit order stack. The variable cost of generating stations being scheduled should be constantly benchmarked to the Exchange price and the most cost effective source must be scheduled first. The same approach has been adopted by many states in North, East and Western Region.”

Mediratta also said, “With short-term power rates less than Rs 2.80 per unit, the utilities have immense opportunity to reduce their cost of power procurement. Already, a few State Electricity Boards have maged to make savings to the tune of about Rs 20 crores in a month by optimizing their power procurement through open access. Further, even the industrial and commercial establishments are saving 20-30 per cent of the power purchase cost by procuring via Exchange leveraging open access and the same is also available for the industrial consumers of the north east. The interested industries also can have another source to continuous and cheap power along with present power from the distribution utility.”

Chairman of FINER RS Joshi said, “It is a very welcome step initiated by IEX to help the industries and APDCL procure cheap and reliable power in a cost effective way. In view of the great potential and opportunity for various industries in the state, the workshop will set the way forward open access regime in the North-East. The charges and losses have also been decreased considerably expecting an industrial revolution in the state attracting potential investors to the state. Already, APDCL and some of the large industries are already taking electricity power from Open Access through IEX exchange platform. This interactive semir would educate other industries also to take the advantage of this option.”