Focus of the month–Open Access in Northern Region: Indianpowersector

Electricity Act, 2003 (the Act) is landmark legislation with strong emphasis on fostering competition to unleash the much needed efficiencies in the system The concept of open access in the electricity sector is a pioneering model that was introduced in the Act. The provision of such non-discriminatory open access is a statutory provision aimed at promoting competition thereby enhancing quality, affordability and reliability of service to customers. While Electricity Act has various enabling provisions related to open access, however due to several technical, operational and regulatory constraints a situation of partial open access has been prevailing today wherein the consumer continues to have agreement with distribution licensee maintaining / paying for the contract demand and at the same time opts for alternative supply from third party. Most common ‘third party’ in present situation is energy exchanges. The sourcing of power through the energy exchanges is being availed either for contingency power (in case of load shedding or power holidays) or for economic reasons. For this reason, today, 2300+ Industries are availing partial open access through the Indian Energy Exchange in order to mitigate power shortage and access cost effective and reliable supply. The focus of this article is to share a status update on open access in the northern states of India.

 Source:- indianpowersector.com