Open Access a Right to choose your own source of Power True or False

Open Access a Right to choose your own source of Power is true or false.Even after 11 years of the effect of The Electricity Act 2003, Open Access is still a distant dream for many stakeholders of the sector. Reasons may be transmission bottlenecks or political will, the end result is the same. Though bulk consumers trade around 40% of the power traded through leading power exchanges to procure power by-passing the local utilities, serious issues in Open Access still remain. 

 A 100% Open Access implementation throughout India by empowering the infrastructure, consumer and local utility is very much important in the scenario to minimize this loss.This year after elections, it was assumed to be a positive scenario in the Indian markets providing lots of opportunities for the industries to grow globally by imparting the competitiveness in prices by minimizing the cost of power procurement. Open Access is a one stop solution for this objective. 

INTRA-STATE OPEN ACCESS 

Rajasthan and  Andhra Pradesh is the state with the most cost beneficial scope of intra state open access for industrial consumers. In this report, the comparison for industrial colonies and industrial tariff has been done with open access landed cost. For each Discom of the state, the comparison gives positive results for an industry drawing at 11kV.

Haryana after increasing cross subsidy and additional surcharge to approx Rs 2.52  per Kwh for industrial consumers is is no more cost economical for industries to draw power through short term interstate open access. Cost of discom supply is almost equivalent to landed cost of exchange power/ STOA or MTOA. competition of open access and discom supply is negligible. industrialists are forced to buy discom power eliminating competition. So Open Access a Right to choose your own source of Power seems to be false

NO Short term Open Access in Haryana: HERC given interim relief of 7 days

Haryana State load Dispatch center has denied issuing NOC's for short term open access embedded consumers of DHBVNL and UHBVNL from mid of may 2014 quoting an order issued by state government for not to allow Short term Open Access in Haryana on account of system constraints.

In a mail communication dated 15th May 2014 haryana sldc conveyed the below message to power exchange, traders and clients

"In compliance to the Notification issued under section 37 of Electricity Act 2003 by Power Deptt of Govt.of Haryana , to maintain smooth and stable Transmission and supply of electricity in the state, The NOCs issued for Short Term Open Access to embedded consumers are here by withdrawn. You are requested not to allow any short Term Open Access to the consumers of Haryana  with immediate effect."

Some of industrial consumer approached to Haryana electricity regulatory commission seeking clarification under rule no 94  Haryana electricity regulatory commission (conduct of business )  and subsequent act no 142 and 146 of Indian electricity Act..

After hearing all the concerned parties the commission decided to have stay on all matters and communications issued by various state government and transmission utilities till next hearing date of 27th may 2014.

"Therefore, after anxious and careful consideration of the issues involved the Commission orders  that  all the parties have the opportunity to respond to the documents placed before the Commission and make additional pleadings if they so desire in the next one week. The Commission in view of the urgency and importance of the matter shall hold a hearing again on 27th May, 2014 at 11.30 A.M.  Notices shall be sent to NRLDC, IEC and PTC also to appear on that date to assist the Commission with the relevant facts.  It was made clear to the parties that the matter is of such extreme importance that no request for adjournment shall be entertained. Meanwhile looking to the balance of convenience in favour of the consumers, the operation of the order dated 14.5.2014 and the consequent communication dated 15.5.2014, the communication of PTC India Limited dated 15.5.14 and the communication of  HVPN dated 16.5.2014 are hereby stayed till next date of hearing dated 27.5.2014. As a result, all the pending about 112 requests which were disposed of by HVPNL by their identical orders dated. 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th May, 2014shall be deemed to have been alive and the HVPN shall either issue NOC in these cases or  pass speaking orders for denying such Open Access.  In case the HVPN chooses not to take any fresh decisions on these requests, then withinthree days, from the present orders, these shall be deemed to be converted into NOCs as per Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and conditions for grant of connectivity and open access for intra-State transmission and distribution system) Regulations, 2012 and its subsequent amendment dated 03.12.2013. It is made clear that in view of the express stay of operation of orders of the Government notification dated 14.5.2014, these orders shall not be made basis of denial to open Access to any party till the next date of hearing on 27.05.2014." 

the full order can be downloaded from HERC website under daily interim orders sections.