India moves to ensure renewable projects unaffected by Covid-19 lockdown

• 4 years ago (2020-04-13)
• David Flin

Asia 859 Renewables 757

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The Indian Government has taken measures to insulate its renewable energy sector as much as possible from the 21-day lockdown announced on 25 March. The lockdown immediately resulted in a sharp decline in power demand as commercial and industrial activity ceased. A number of thermal power plants had to be shut down to match demand with supply.

The decline in the share of predictable and controllable power generation in the grid has led to concerns about the impact of an increased share of variable and intermittent renewable energy generation in the grid. Because of this, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has reiterated the must-run status accorded to renewable energy projects. This means that electricity retailers are obligated to buy all electricity generated from renewable energy projects irrespective of the cost or other parameters.

A number of power retailers are looking to delay payments for the next few months as they have extended concessions to consumers to delay payment of electricity bills. In response to this, MNRE has ordered that payments to renewable energy generators should not be stopped.