MERC to hear plea against TPL on April 12

MUMBAI: State power regulator MERC will on April 12 hear a plea filed by Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co against Tata Power for overdrawing 200 MW of power from the state grid, MERC chief Pramod Deo said.

Speaking at a Indian Merchants Chamber meeting, Deo said among the issues that will come up for hearing will be whether the company was authorised to buy power from MSEDCL and the charges they will pay for the power drawn.

Deo said Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission has allowed “open access” to consumers from April 1, under which anyone with a requirement of as low as one MW could choose his supplier if there is one.

Hitherto, consumers were required to take power from the distribution utility operating in that particular area.

Referring to the current power scenario in the state, Deo said the way out could be to follow the Pune model where there is no load-shedding at present as excess power produced by local private sector units is being sold to the grid.

However, he said the model could work only in areas where distribution losses are low and collection is high. It may not work everywhere but MERC has recommended to the state government to extend this model to some other urban centres as well, he said.