Govt Announces Waiver of ISTS Charges on Solar, Wind, Hydro PSP, BESS Projects until June 2025

With an aim to encourage more use of renewable energy (RE) across sectors in line with its commitments towards climate change, the Government has announced the waiver of inter-state transmission system (ISTS) charges on transmission of electricity generated from solar, wind, hydro pumped storage plant (PSP) and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects to be commissioned up to June 30, 2025.

The Ministry of Power in an order stated that “it promotes the development of solar, wind, hydro PSP and BESS, trading of RE in the power exchanges and seamless transmission of RE power across the states.”

Earlier, the waiver of ISTS charges on power transmission from solar and wind projects were available to projects commissioned up to June 30, 2023, now, it has been extended till June 30, 2025.

Additionally, the waiver of ISTS charges for hydro PSP and BESS projects, will also promote such projects meeting the balancing requirement of the grid caused due to large scale integration of renewable in the electricity grid i.e. around 450 GW by 2030.

Besides, the waiver of transmission charges has also been allowed for trading of electricity generated/ supplied from solar, wind, PSP and BESS in Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM) and Green Day Ahead Market (GDAM) for 2 years till June 30, 2023. This is expected to encourage the RE trade in power exchanges, said the Power Ministry.

The Ministry said that “the order is futuristic as it also allows waiver of transmission charges for RE trade in the GDAM (as part of the integrated Day ahead market). CERC, POSOCO and the power exchanges are working on it in mission mode to operationalise this product in the power exchanges by the end of August 2021.”

It has also been clarified that an ISTS which is used for the conveyance of electricity across the territory of an intervening State as well as conveyance within the State which is incidental to such inter-State transmission of electricity, would be included for sharing of ISTS charges.

Any waiver of inter-state transmission charges that applies to ISTS would also be applicable to such parts of the Intra-state transmission. The transmission charges of such ISTS would be reimbursed by the CTU as is being done for ISTS system. Concerned Regional Power Committee may through studies identify such lines, the Ministry added.