The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has urged Haryana to honor signed renewable energy contracts and to provide them with the connectivity they need to start transmitting power.
In recent months, Haryana has been reluctant to connect 1000 MW of 'open access' solar projects that had been completed earlier. As a result, these projects are denied formal approval, industry sources told ET.
Open access projects are those where developers supply power directly to customers and not to a power distribution company (discom).
However, since they are using the grid, they need permission from the discom to do so. Although the government has encouraged open access projects, there has been a great deal of resistance from discomfort (including those owned by the government) across the country, as discomfort loses revenue if power is transmitted directly.
There are three phases of consent for open access transmission – provisional connectivity, final connectivity and final interconnection. 1000MW of projects in Haryana are stuck in various phases of consent.
“Continuously from last two years renewable energy developers are being asked to invest and develop solar projects in Haryana, and then their investments and projects are imposed with newer conditions and are cancelled, making huge loss to them,” said MNRE’s letter dated April 15.
“The undersigned is directed to forward herewith the aforesaid letter of Connect Solar and to convey that, all agreements/ contracts once signed, should be sacrosanct and honoured unless a case of malafide or corruption has been proved,” it said.
The letter of MNRE was attached to a representation made by Connect Solar, an association made up of solar developers from Haryana. "Initially, in the name of the wrongly anticipated technical and economic impact of renewable energy on the system and the state, and later, by changing entire definitions, connections are denied after massive state investments in land and solar infrastructure have been made," the letter said.
In March, the Distributed Solar Power Association, a group of rooftop solar developers, told ET that they are likely to file a petition to the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission on the matter.
