Kolkata The Prime Minister’s Office is asking state-run power utilities to follow the West Bengal model in terms of tariff. The said model keeps a margin after realising the real cost of production.

The move may have been prodded by the Planning Commission, which is pushing the Centre to raise the borrowing limits of Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, so these states can take further loans to clear the power sector of debt.

Sri Lanka is geared to generate 100 MW of power from wind on Mannar Island, Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA) Dr. Kithsiri Dissanayake said yesterday.

He said: "Wind is the fastest growing renewable energy source in the world. The Government of Sri Lanka is planning to scaling up the privately owned 30 MW Wind Farms in Kalpitiya by threefold within the next year."

Industry unhappy over unremunerative tariff in a scenario of rising biomass prices

Amid growing regulatory and administrative uncertainties the biomass-based power producers have sought the intervention of Forum of Regulators (FoR) for early resolution of issues relating to open access, cross subsidy, CDM sharing, penalty clause imposed by certain distribution companies for maintaining plant load factor and the tariff structure.

Maharashtra regulator starts proceedings for stakeholders' opinion

State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) want to be very cautious before implementation of power ministry’s suggestion on providing open access for consumers with a demand for 1 MW and above. The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has taken a lead to solicit suggestions from members of public and all stakeholders in the state.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is UPA's man with the political Midas touch. He needs to lend some of that magic to lift the economy out of its morass. By the Government's own estimate, the economy is expected to grow by a mere 6.9 per cent in 2011-12, a sharp decline from 8.4 per cent in 2010-11. Inflation remains uncomfortably high at over 7 per cent. Investor sentiment has been suffocated in the last one year by policy paralysis and corruption.

New Delhi: Even as the central government is pushing states for mandatory implementation of open access (OA) for bulk power consumers, an analysis by a regulators’ body has revealed that contrary to expectations, the consumers in 12 states have had to pay more for power under the new regime.

OA at various levels is the hallmark of electricity reforms and the regime has been effective in 20 states since January 2009 on an optional basis. Under the OA regime, bulk consumers enter into bilateral deals with discoms and stay outside the ambit of the regulated tariff system.

Reliance Infrastructure has given an assurance to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) that low hanging power lines that had resulted in the electrocution of 99 elephants in Orissa will be improved upon. A meeting to this effect was held last week in New Delhi and was attended by officials from the discom, MoEF, Orissa state government, the Wildlife Society of Orissa and the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

The state-run power distribution company has raised electricity tariff by 29 paise to Rs 5.82. The West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL) today notified its fourth upward revision since December 30. With the latest hike coming into force with retrospective effect from the beginning of May, the average per unit tariff for the utility’s one crore-odd consumers has risen by Rs 1.55 in four-and-a-half months. The new tariff will be six paise less than the Rs 5.88 a unit charged by the CESC from its 25 lakh consumers in Calcutta and Howrah.

Guwahati, May 16: Assam power minister Pradyut Bordoloi today said the state would go for second generation reforms to help improve the power scenario.
The first phase of reforms, carried out since 2005, saw the unbundling of the loss-making ASEB into five companies to enhance efficiency and encourage competition. This was subsequently trimmed to three entities — Assam Power Distribution Company limited, Assam Power Generation Company Limited and Assam Electricity Grid Corporation Limited.