Himachal Pradesh fixes open access charges

Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission has set various open access charges.

These include transmission charges for short term and long term OA consumers, wheeling charges, cross subsidy surcharge, among others.

For short term OA consumers, transmission charges have been pegged at Rs 0.021/kWh while the figure for medium and long term OA consumers stands at Rs 10,843 MW/month.

The commission has also stated that in case of a variation in the contracted capacity, the recovery, through transmission charges, from distribution licensees will be limited to the approved ARR of the corresponding utility.

On the other hand, wheeling charges have been approved in the range of Rs 0.38 per unit to Rs 1.86 per unit depending on the the categories-- more than 66 kV, more than 11 kV and less than 11 kV. Wheeling charges will be levied on the energy drawn at the delivery point in the distribution system.

As far as the cross subsidy surcharge is concerned, it will be levied for peak load hours, in all categories except for bulk supply to HT category.

Additionally, the transmission and distribution losses are to be absorbed by the OA consumers in kind and these will be credited to the corresponding licensees through the energy accounting mechanism.