The Group Captive System: The Regulations!

<p>Let us take a detailed look at the Act and the Rules on Group Captive System.</p><p> </p><p>I could not resist the temptation to copy paste the relevant lines from the Act / Rules here. For easier discussion, allow me to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Let us start our discussion at the top. That is, with the Electricity Act 2003 with all the amendments that have been made till 2007. The proposed amendment in 2014, though presented in Parliament, still stands unratified, suffering the fate of 2011 draft.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Definition:</strong></p><p>“Captive generating plant” means a power plant set up by any person to generate electricity primarily for his own use and includes a power plant set up by any co-operative society or association of persons for generating electricity primarily for use of members of such co- operative society or association;</p><p> </p><p><strong>Act:</strong></p><p>Section 9: (Captive generation):</p><p>(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, a person may construct, maintain or operate a captive generating plant and dedicated transmission lines:  </p><p>Provided that the supply of electricity from the captive generating plant through the           grid shall be regulated in the same manner as the generating station of a generating company.</p><p> </p><p>1[Provided further that no licence shall be required under this Act for supply of electricity generated from a captive generating plant to any licencee in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the rules and regulations made thereunder and to any consumer subject to the regulations made under sub- section (2) of section 42.]</p><p> </p><p>(2) Every person, who has constructed a captive generating plant and maintains and operates such plant, shall have the right to open access for the purposes of carrying electricity from his captive generating plant to the destination of his use:</p><p>Provided that such open access shall be subject to availability of adequate transmission facility and such availability of transmission facility shall be determined by the Central Transmission Utility or the State Transmission Utility, as the case may be:</p><p>Provided further that any dispute regarding the availability of transmission facility shall be adjudicated upon by the Appropriate Commission.</p><p>A quick look at the definition of what is Captive Generating Plant would clarify that the Act does not ‘see’ beyond those plants that are installed by the consumer themselves or by a cooperative society or by an Association of Persons. And there is nothing like a Group Captive Generating plant said here, as I have said in my first piece in this series of articles on Group Captive.</p><p> </p><p>The Act does not recognize anything like that!</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(To be continued…)</p>

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