Discoms want peak-hour tariff for 10kW consumers

NEW DELHI: Your electricity bills could soon fluctuate according to consumption at different time slots during the day. Power discoms BSES Yamuna, BSES Rajdhani and Tata Power Delhi have proposed extending the time-of-the-day (ToD) tariff to domestic consumers with a sanctioned load of 10kW and above.

The proposal was made in the tariff petitions submitted to the regulator, DERC, earlier this year. If DERC accepts the idea, it could be incorporated in the tariff schedule for 2014-15. At present, the ToD tariff is paid only by industrial and commercial category consumers with a load of 5 kW. Its extension to domestic consumers was first suggested by the Delhi government last year. The petition by Tata Power Delhi says the proposal aims to cover significant electricity consumption and benefit a reasonably large number of consumers through the ToD tariff, which will help in shifting peak load and flattening the load curve to optimize the power purchase cost and capital expenditure. The BSES discoms' petitions are on a similar line.

"The petitioner has proposed a ToD tariff for consumers with a load more than 10kW. This will result in chopping the peak load. It is submitted that at present, for all loads more than 10kW, three phase meters are installed having the capacity to record consumption in pre-defined time slots,'' read the petitions by the BSES discoms.

Under this system, power rates will vary according to time slots. Discoms will identify the peak hours and the remaining slots. The tariff for the peak hours will be higher, while the rates for non-peak hours will drop. The peak/off-peak hours will change according to the weather and demand pattern. DERC has asked for feedback from consumers.