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Tag: Green Energy

CMD, IREDA Meets CM and Dy CM of Odisha to Boost Green Energy Financing

Mumbai, 3rd July 2024 : Shri Pradip Kumar Das, Chairman & Managing Director, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA), met with the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha, Shri Mohan Charan Majhi and Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister, Shri Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo in Bhubaneswar today. The meetings focused on IREDA’s pivotal role in renewable energy financing and its commitment to sustainable development.

CMD and DF with CM

During the discussion, Shri Das emphasized IREDA’s significant contributions to renewable energy project financing across the country. He elaborated on the company’s initiatives aimed at promoting clean energy and explained how IREDA can further support Odisha in tapping its renewable energy potential through financing. The state’s green energy goals were a key focus of the conversation, particularly the opportunities in areas such as Hydro, Floating Solar, Solar component manufacturing, Green Hydrogen, and Green Ammonia, etc.

The Hon’ble Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister commended IREDA’s remarkable growth and acknowledged its position as the largest financing company dedicated to green energy development. Shri Deo also holds the charge of the Energy Department.

Dr. Bijay Kumar Mohanty, Director (Finance), also participated in the discussions, underscoring IREDA’s commitment to support fastest renewable energy development in the country.

OAI applauds the Ministry of Power for issuing the Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy through Green Energy Open Access Rules) Rules 2022

COAI applauds the Ministry of Power for issuing the Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy through Green Energy Open Access Rules) Rules 2022

The Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy through Green Energy Open Access Rules) Rules 2022 were issued by the Ministry of Power. These rules will apply to the generation, purchase, and consumption of green electricity including energy from the Waste-to-Energy facility.  The new regulations will allow consumers to be eligible for open access to green energy if they have a contract demand or a sanctioned load of at least 100 kW. Captive consumers will not be subject to any load limitations.

In various meetings and submissions, COAI raised concerns that the important limitation in the OA policies – that the buyer must have a minimum ‘Connected Load’ typically 1MW, which is being followed by most states. From a telecom perspective, since each tower has an independent electricity connection and consumes about 3 to 5KW, which is much less than 1MW, our member TSPs are unable to make use of renewable sources effectively due to this regulatory bottleneck. Although on an aggregate level, tower sites put together consume much higher.  From a practical standpoint, considering the distribution and spread of mobile towers and limited open area available at the tower site, an on-site solar net metering solution has practical limitations w.r.t. deployment. Hence to deploy renewables at a bigger scale, our member TSPs need renewable energy solutions that can only be provided through Open Access.

Appreciating the directions issued by the Ministry of Power, Lt. Gen. Dr SP Kochhar, Director General said “We are grateful to Chairman, TRAI and Secretary, DoT for their continuous support on taking this issue with the Ministry of Power. We welcome the notification of the Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy through Green Energy Open Access Rules) Rules 2022 for promoting renewable energy through Green Energy Open Access which prescribes for any consumer who has contracted demand/sanctioned load of 100 kW or more except for captive consumers. However, the Industry has been requesting to Ministry of Power and various State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERC) & Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions (CERC) to allow Telecom Infrastructure Open Access for Solar/Renewal Energy without any policy restrictions on minimum usage or allow Telco’s to aggregate their electricity demands across a number of towers. We hope that this request of the industry will be considered at the earliest.

Telecom connectivity is the lifeline for the country that has kept people and businesses connected throughout the pandemic. The Telecom networks (Tower sites, networks, and telecom Data Centres among others) run 24×7 with 99.95% uptime requirements, and consumers are dependent upon reliable and continuous electricity supply.

COAI’s member TSPs deploy a huge infrastructure of towers across the length and breadth of the country and continuously try to reduce their carbon footprint by deploying solar and other renewable energy solutions in line with the audacious target set by the Government and are committed to it under Paris Accord to achieve energy sustainability and reduce carbon footprint.