The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) of India has published the Renewable Energy Tarif Regulations, 2024. These regulations are effective from July 1, 2024, and will remain in force until March 31, 2027, unless revised earlier. This notification was issued on July 12, 2024.
The regulations define various terms such as biomass, biogas, capital cost, and renewable energy sources. They specify the eligibility criteria and detailed parameters for different types of renewable energy projects, including wind, small hydro, biomass, solar PV, solar thermal, and hybrid energy projects etc.
The tariff determination for renewable energy projects is based on a generic tariff for certain types of projects. These include small hydro projects, biomass power projects with Rankine cycle technology etc. They also denote a project-specific tariff for others projects such as wind power projects, solar PV power
projects etc.
The generic tariff is determined annually by the Commission, while the project-specific tariff is calculated on a case-by-case basis. The tariff components include return on equity, interest on loan, depreciation, interest on working capital, and operation and maintenance expenses. For projects with a fuel cost component, a single part tariff with fixed and fuel cost components is determined.
The regulations address the treatment of over-generation, tariff design, and the financial principles for calculating capital cost, debt-equity ratio, loan tenure, depreciation, return on equity, interest on working capital, and operation and maintenance expenses.
The regulations mandate the recovery of statutory charges by the renewable energy project developer.
Additionally, the regulations also provide templates for tariff determination and calculation. These are tailored to various renewable energy projects and provide a structured format for financial and operational data.
