INVC,,
Greater Noida,,
Scaling up renewable energy capacity through transmission expansion for a clean future and to examine how regulators in the U.S. and India have approached transmission expansion topped the agenda of ACORE’s side event in partnership with IPPAI at India Expo Centre & Mart, Greater Noida in Delhi on 27th October 2010.
The event brought together world leaders, including Mr. Michael T. Eckhart, President ACORE & WCRE, Mr. Harry Dhaul, Director General, IPPAI, Mr. Kenneth Westrick, Founder and CEO, 3Tier, Mr. Kim Massey, Supervisor – Grid and Dispatchable Power, National Renewable Energy laboratory, USA and Mr. Bhanu Bhushan, Former Member, CERC, Mr. Alok Roy, CEO, Reliance Power Transmission and Dr. Atmanand, Dean-School of Energy Management, Dean-Excecutive Post Graduate Programs, Professor of Economics and Energy, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon.
The event was organized by ACORE, in partnership with the Independent Power Producers Association of India (IPPAI) and the U.S. Department of Energy.
“Transmission is one piece in the energy sector which does not get enough attention” said Mr. Harry Dhaul, Director General, IPPAI in his opening remarks. Highlighting the current difficulty Mr. Eckhart, President, ACORE & Co-Chairman, WCRE said, “We can’t develop any more power in Iowa because there is no transmission to evacuate the power to load centres to the west”. It was said that tariff based competitive bidding for transmission will lead to lower costs than in cost based regime. Transmission asset should be given a decent ROI just a few percent over prevailing fed rate. i.e. 10-11 % upto 15% . Mr. Bhanu Bhushan, Former Member, CERC said that STUs should build these lines to harness RE transmission. He further added that Government should pay for these – Capital cost reimbursed to STU as part of Government promotion of RE and No transmission charges to be paid by anybody.
Presenting his perspective, Mr. Atmanand opined that smart grid will encompass all format energy generation and consumption and encourage RE. Micro grids should be connected to the mega grids. He said that PPP helps, citing the example of Tata transmission and signed off by saying that UI norms for wind/ solar maybe diluted.
Concluding the discussion Mr. Harry Dhaul said, “For India to be able to maintain its double digit economic growth in a sustainable manner, focus on renewable energy needs to increase to ensure a lower carbon footprint is maintained as per the commitments made by Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. Obama in Copenhagen”.
